


Eternal Tails: Chronos Divide

by Pantalion



Series: Eternal Tails [4]
Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW Comics), Sonic the Hedgehog (Video Games), Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Blood, Canon Compliant, Child Death, Competent Miles "Tails" Prower, Constructive Criticism Welcome, Depression, Doomed Relationship, Dysfunctional Relationships, End of the World, Feels, Fluff and Angst, Free Will, Friends to Enemies, Gen, Genocide, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Robots, Science Fiction, Self-Sacrifice, Sonic CD, Species Swap, Suicide, Tags Are Hard, Tails Abuse, This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think, Time Loop, Time Shenanigans, Time Travel, Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 18:54:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 27
Words: 39,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25570159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pantalion/pseuds/Pantalion
Summary: Travelling back from a nightmarish future Miles "Tails" Prower escaped with only four goals left: Save the world, save the girl, save his friends, stop existing. But with Eggman's invasion going on all around him and a new and even greater threat coming back to haunt him, will Miles succeed in saving the world, or will he be the one to doom it in the first place?
Relationships: Amy Rose & Miles "Tails" Prower, Miles "Tails" Prower & Original Character(s)
Series: Eternal Tails [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1820140
Comments: 16
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Heyo! Just to let you know that this story is a direct sequel to Eternal Tails: Bad Seed and the end of a trilogy. You'll never need to read earlier Eternal Tails stories to know what's going on, but you might enjoy the stories more if you read them in order.
> 
> I really like how the cover for this one came out, so here it is if you're interested: https://www.deviantart.com/theworddemon/art/Eternal-Tails-Chronos-Divide-847217294
> 
> Happy reading!
> 
> ~ Pan

A broken fox walked the broken land.

One foot in front of the other, slow, methodical. Twin tails coiling around one another as he plodded from place to place, swimming through polluted waters and climbing through mechanised forests.

Once in awhile, the fox pulled out a metal flask from the folds of a tattered green backpack, drinking its sickly sweet contents without comment. Once in a greater while he pulled out a clunky metal box from the pocket of a threadbare blue hoodie, jabbing his finger at buttons on its surface with a frown before continuing his silent, solitary pilgrimage.

Grease-stained desert gave way to a maze of corroded steel structures, vile ash grey rain pattering down over the bones of broken machines from a sky of metal. But the fox kept walking at that slow, sedate pace.

What would be the point in hurrying?

The world had already ended after all.

And he was the only one left.

Miles Prower, child genius, for a given value of child, mechanic, and unwilling hero. Or possibly villain. He wasn't quite sure which at this point, and he refused to think too hard about it for fear he wouldn't like the answer.

So instead, day after sunless day, night after moonless night, he walked on, sleeping only when exhaustion took him. When he was too tired to dream.

Until at last, atop a mountain crisscrossed by long dried rivers, a beep came from the fox's backpack. He paused, lungs burning from the tainted air as he pulled the metal box free, fingers dancing across its buttons.

"Finally."

The whisper echoed in the absolute stillness, the first voice in centuries in that desolate ruin.

Miles turned this way and that for a moment, beeping box held aloft, before plodding forward, down into a hollow carved out by a long gone waterway.

There.

A corner of metal peeked out from beneath a dry crust of silt. Miles reached down, pulling it easily from the dirt with a strength that belied his tiny body. A signpost teetered upright with a groan, ancient letters carved in gold on its surface.

PAST.

Miles traced gloved fingers over its surface, eye shifting from blue to a glittering pink, crystalline fractals tracing across his iris. Energy crackled from the sign's surface, spreading up the fox's arm and beyond until his orange yellow fur stood on end, white sparks tumbling from his body to the barren earth below.

"Let's get it right this time."

Dropping into a four point crouch, the fox raised his tails, spinning them faster and faster until the air flow was scouring the dusty earth behind him, until his fingers were being pushed into the dirt from holding himself back.

And he released, feet spinning momentarily to build up momentum before the force of the tails behind him lifted him from the ground, only the tips of his toes trailing below to steer him as he soared up the river bed, glow increasing along with his speed.

He ran out of river, exploding out into empty space, the mountainside stretching into the distance below, endless dry plains as far as the eye could see, but the fox didn't stop moving, even when gravity tilted him forward and all that forward thrust now propelled him down towards the barren earth below eight times faster than terminal velocity.

The world turned a blinding white, fading in an instant like the flash of a camera to reveal green rolling hills and lush forest as far as the eye could see, glorious sunshine shining down from the blue sky above, and a waterfall, which the fox now slammed into at a relative velocity high enough that the impact was like hitting a sheet of concrete. Miles bounced off the water in an uncontrolled spin, fur no longer glowing, eyes once again blue - and vacant - as he tumbled down to the river below.

Impact.

The cold shock of submersion jerked the fox back to his senses in more ways than one as he sank to the bottom of the pool like a rock. His brain, long slowed by isolation and boredom, surged back to life in a torrent of thoughts that made computers look dull in comparison as his brain prioritised, calculated and schemed.

He needed to find out how far back he'd travelled in the timeline, then change a future that he'd already lived through, potentially by waiting centuries to reach the correct time period if he couldn't find the time stones to do it.

He sighed, bubbles sparkling in the sunlight filtering down from above.

Time travel was the worst.

At least this wasn't his first temporal rodeo, which gave him vital knowledge on how things worked. Miles had actually met and interacted with his own time displaced self. The event that gave him acute headaches trying to remember it, but the universe hadn't imploded. Likewise, he knew Silver, a hedgehog born in approximately the future time period he'd just left, had still been born unchanged after several massive changes in the timeline, which meant that time was loosely convergent, so he didn't need to worry about sneezing and accidentally preventing one of his friends from being born from the butterfly effect.

So, all he needed to do to succeed was to avoid any major changes and avoid messing with the timeline as much as possible so as not to make things worse in new and exciting ways before the evil Doctor Robotnik built the Death Egg around the planet. Then he could end the Happy Days project in its infancy. Before it wiped all life from both planets and locked his past self up with Cream the Rabbit for hundreds of years.

Save the world to save the girl.

Save the world to save his friends.

Save the world to stop existing.

Simple.

The sound of something large plunging into the water broke through his thoughts. A pink furred hedgehog in a green and orange dress, dropping to the floor of the pool like he had as she struggled along the bottom towards him. A hedgehog he recognised at first glance, one he wouldn't meet until she left Little Planet. One of the two people on Little Planet that he had wanted to avoid at all costs, and a walking temporal disaster waiting to happen.

Amy Rose.

The word Miles uttered floated away as bubbles, thankfully to remain unheard by anyone over the sound of the waterfall.

Ugh. Whatever. He sat up. Like most mobians, Amy couldn't swim, and at this age she hadn't developed her speed over years of stalking her hero, Sonic, so if Miles went in the opposite direction he could easy get away before she saw more than a glimpse of him. Timeline intact, no prob-

The girl slipped on the bottom of the pool in a spray of bubbles, still crawling to try and reach him as the violent currents of the plunge pool mercilessly pulled her too and fro. She hadn't developed her strength yet either. A perfectly average mobian girl.

And the average mobian could only hold their breath for around thirty seconds.

Shaking his head with another bubbly sigh, Miles launched towards her, arms outstretched.


	2. Chapter 2

Miles carried Amy to the bank of the pool with aching caution. Partly because this Amy Rose hadn't yet decided to start shaving her back and he didn't want a six inch quill through his hand. But mostly it was because the little girl with his friend's face was so... _small_.

Amy had always been taller than him. Especially as the years dragged by and he stopped growing, still a child, when everyone else started to turn into adults and leave him behind. Her being like this felt fundamentally wrong. A temporal impostor. A ghost from his memories here to haunt him.

_Please. Tails… it's_ _**me** _ _._

Miles flinched, dropping Amy to the ground as he stumbled backwards, waves of nausea rushing through his body.

This was why he hadn't wanted to meet her.

How can you face someone after killing them?

"Are you okay?"

Green eyes radiated concern as she leaned over him, hands clasped together under her dripping chin.

By lying.

"I'm fine." Miles grinned, rubbing the wet fur on the back of his head. "Sorry about the bumpy landing. My arms gave out."

"Thank goodness! I saw you falling and I was so worried." Amy plopped back on the bank with a smile. "So you can swim? That's amazing! Are you from the mountains? What's your clan? I've never seen you around before."

Miles blinked.

Well that was new too. The first time he'd met Amy she'd already known _everything_ about him, halfway between gushing admiration that he was Tails, sidekick of _the_ Sonic the Hedgehog, and seething jealousy that he was taking up too much of Sonic's attention as a result.

"I'm… from... far away. Not surprised you haven't seen anyone like me before though." He grinned, spinning his tails in a spray of water droplets. Amy's eyes went wide.

"Oh my! You even have two of them!" She hopped from side to side. "That is _so_ weird!"

"Heh. Yeah." Miles smiled distantly.

He was used to that, at least. The one and only mobian fox, and a two-tailed one at that. Doubly strange wherever he went. Though technically if he was the only fox, didn't that make him a perfectly normal specimen?

It didn't matter anyway. Amy would meet him - the _real_ him, not this intruder from a broken future - after Robotnik invaded, after Sonic saved her, after she followed him to Earth. Which, from her current appearance, was going to be pretty soon. He didn't have _time_ for making friends.

"Well, I'd better get going. Thanks for trying to save-" He reached to adjust his pack and found only air. Darn it. Must have fallen off when he hit. Miles scanned the water with a frown, a frown which deepened as he pulled the tracker from his pocket.

Shorted. He hadn't thought to include waterproofing. Miles sighed, putting it back again. This just wasn't his day... Year? Century?

"Ah! What happened to your clothes?"

"Hm?" Miles tugged at the hoodie he wore. It was more hole than cloth at this point, especially the back. "I guess I kind of blew up a little? It's fine, though, I only need it for the- agh?"

Amy grabbed his hand and started dragging him - slowly and gently from his perspective - behind her. "Come on! I can't let you run around like _that_. They're soaked anyway."

"Oh, uh-" Miles hesitated, still being pulled along.

While he was amply strong enough to refuse, to flick Amy off and go about trying to find his backpack - probably halfway to Little Ocean by now, he was not, by nature, a forceful person. He didn't have the drive of a hero like Sonic or Amy - even at this age, apparently - to go around doing things like that.

So instead, as usual, he passively observed as the hedgehog girl dragged him towards a small cluster of buildings, peeking to observe a small group of children playing together on a dirt square at their centre before scurrying, Miles in tow, into one of the houses through a side door.

"That you, Rosy?" A masculine voice called out as they entered a cosily decorated kitchen.

"Yeah, just me, Dad!"

Amy, her finger at her lips, led Miles through into a hallway and up a flight of wooden stairs, leaving wet footprints in their wake. Miles caught a glimpse of a grey quilled hedgehog leaned over a workbench as they ascended before being dragged into a surprisingly non-pink bedroom.

"Wait here a sec." Amy released his hand and quickly stepped deeper into the room.

Wait, this was during her tomboy phase right now, right? Miles shifted uncomfortably - it was still a girl's room, after all, even if it was Amy. A pair of boxing gloves hung from a hook on the door as it swung shut behind him. Faded old sports magazines scattered across a bed, along with a few old Earth newspapers showing… Yep, articles about Sonic. Miles smiled despite himself. She was well on schedule.

"Here we are. Sorry about the mess, I don't usually spend much time in my room."

Miles looked up from a scattering of tarot cards on her bedside table, eyebrow raised as she thrust a pile of different colours of cloth into his arms.

"There you go!" She smiled. "I think we're about the same size, but if they're too small let me know."

Miles blinked, momentarily confused before he realised that it wasn't cloth so much as _clothes_. Towel too.

"Oh, hey! Thanks, A- uh… lot!" He pulled the hood over his head as the rest of the garment simply gave up, threads unravelling until it fell to the floor as dirty blue rags and rusty metal plates.

"You can keep them if you want. I somehow only ever end up wearing the same four outfits anyway."

Generally speaking, clothing wasn't something Miles gave much thought to. Same as any male mobian, gloves and boots were normally plenty, but here on Little Planet, with no reality warping Chaos Emeralds around to support his usual habit of breaking into non-euclidean physics for convenient storage space, he had developed a certain appreciation for pockets. Not enough to wear pants, obviously. No bottoms could contain his non-standard bottom, but the black and white Letterman jacket she gave him would be good for holding a few gadgets. The shirt not so much, but he could... Wait.

"Hold on, this is a skirt?" He held up the offending article in a white gloved hand, eyebrow raised.

Amy tilted her head at him, already changed into a new outfit herself, a towel dangling from the spikes on her head. "Huh? Sure. If you don't like it, I think I have a pair of shorts I could find for you?"

Miles sighed.

"I'm a boy."

Much as he wished otherwise at times, his neotenic physiology had left him as an unreasonably adorable ball of fluff for his entire life, with a voice that couldn't ever be described as manly, _barely_ as boyish. It was so bad he'd been mistaken for a girl more than a few times in his life even when he _hadn't_ been wearing clothes.

"Oh?" Amy covered her mouth with both hands, furless cheeks reddening to match her fur. "Oh! B-b-but you were wearing _clothes!_ I just figured that you were a- well-"

Miles raised a hand, cutting her off.

"It's fine. Easy mistake to make. If you want me to take these off and return them I can do that?"

"No! Uh, no. You did save me after all." Amy was now facing away from him, hands still over her face.

"Alright." Miles shrugged, laying the skirt aside as he pulled the rest over his shoulders, struggling to squeeze his now extra poofy fur in. "...Wait, there's a hole in the back of these too?"

"Oh, those are for your- my spikes. There are zippers - wait, I can get them for you, turn around." Amy inched towards him, arms outstretched.

"Is… everything okay?" Miles turned away, staring at the door.

"Well, you're a boy in my room, and I- and you-... You're not dressed." Hesitant fingers tugged at his back.

"What." Miles raised an eyebrow. "Do boys wear clothes on Little Planet?"

"No, but now you're wearing clothes and- and it's just _weird,_ okay?"

"Well, sorry for being weird-" Miles looked up as the door swung open.

"Rosy, what's with the mess on- who are you?" The grey hedgehog from before froze, looking down at Miles.

"Hi, Mister Rosy's dad, sir!" Miles smiled sweetly and waved, mind racing. "We fell in a puddle, sorry!"

"Oh, hello there!" The hedgehog smiled. "Who's your friend, Pricklepear?"

"Daaad!" Amy whined behind him. "It's _Rosy the Rascal._ "

Miles carefully erased a smirk from his face. Little Planet mobians were patrinomial, hence Amy Rose, and presumably himself, Miles Prower (though that could just be the case of his parents being sadists). It was only on Earth, where mobians were so heavily outnumbered by humans, that they aligned by clan names for easy congregation: Sonic the _Hedgehog_ , Knuckles the _Echidna_ , Rouge the _Bat_. Even his nickname, Tails the Fox, followed this scheme, though he had no clan to identify with. Amy, in an _adorable_ bid to emulate her hero Sonic, had managed to define her species as "Rascal".

"My name is Prower, and I am eight years old!" Miles pirouetted on one foot, pouring on as much saccharine as he could stomach.

"Well, aren't you cute?" The hedgehog glanced over Miles' head. "Is your new friend staying for dinner, Pricklepear?"

"Sorry, I've got to go home to mama soon."

"Well that's too bad, maybe another time? Anyway, have fun you two!" Amy's father turned with a wave and left.

"Well that could have gone worse." Miles remarked, once the footsteps had faded. "Way you snuck me in here I thought I might be in trouble there."

"I didn't want people to see you with your clothes falling off!" Amy frowned, looking away. "Also... pretty sure my dad _totally_ thinks you're a girl. Probably more than he thinks _I'm_ a girl."

Miles flinched.

"So are you really eight years old, Prower?"

"Sure am." Miles grinned.

Of course, he'd been eight for about two hundred and eighteen years at this point, most of those spent imprisoned in Happy Days. There were probably eldritch abominations younger than him at this point. Probably had more in common with them than he had with the average child too.

"Wow, me too." Amy smiled.

"Huh, what a coincidence." Miles tilted an ear. That _was_ useful information. Robotnik's invasion had to occur soon then. "Say, do you know when Earth's next in orbit?"

"Huh? You mean Big Planet?" Amy stared at him. "Should be in a few days. A few of us in the village were going to head over to Heather Hills to check it out. Would you like to come with us?"

Darn it.

Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik would harpoon Little Planet with a giant chain just before the two planets left their month long period of close contact, starting an invasion that, thanks to time travel being involved, would retroactively have already started by the time he got there. Soon automatic factories would spread across the world in preparation for the good doctor's arrival, mechanising their surroundings and producing badnik assault robots for his armies.

On the other hand, this represented a good opportunity. According to what Sonic had told him, which could be legitimate or the timeline rewriting his memories as he screwed it up - time travel was the _worst_ \- Robotnik had gathered the seven time stones - one of which had installed itself in Miles' head already while he'd been escaping from Happy Days - in order to power his time travelling schemes of conquest. Sonic had fought his way across Little Planet from the chain's impact area, hijacking the time travel network Eggman had constructed to destroy all the mech factories in the past, retroactively resolving most of what had happened - outside of the initial invasion forces - and, most importantly, had recovered the time stones from Robotnik's forces before destroying the chain, freeing Little Planet, saving the girl, and so on.

While the Chaos Emeralds on Earth scattered themselves across space when brought into close proximity with one another for too long, the Time Stones scattered themselves across _time._ Robotnik's invasion marked the one solitary point in the timeline where Miles knew the exact temporal "location" of all seven. Or six? Which one was "his" pink stone?

Having all the time stones was legendarily supposed to allow the wielder to perform "miracles", which was presumably similar to the effect of having all seven Chaos Emeralds, which allowed sufficiently attuned individuals like himself to channel the chaos energy to transform into overwhelmingly powerful chaos states. Something like that would be extremely helpful if he was going to take on an entire battle station by himself. At very least he'd be able to use their energy in a machine to precisely skip forward in time, saving himself years of existing when he didn't have to.

"Are you... okay?" Amy was staring at him.

"Huh? Oh, sorry." Miles grinned, rubbing the back of his head. "I space out thinking sometimes."

"Well, yeah! You've done that like, three times already. It's just you started looking really sad all of a sudden?"

"Really?" Miles shrugged. "Anyway, thanks for the offer but I'd better get going. Thanks again for the jacket, A-... _Pricklepear_."

"Hey!" Amy punched him in the shoulder.

Miles smirked, picking up the ragged remains of his hoodie and depositing them around his person before heading back downstairs.

"Well, hope you have a good time planet-watching, Rosy." Miles waved at her as he slipped out the door. "It's going to be a celestial event to remember."

As soon as the door shut behind him Miles launched into the sky, flying at high speed until the village wasn't even a speck behind him. This had been a pleasant enough trip down memory lane, but now he could at least get on with his search _without_ further interruptions.


	3. Chapter 3

"You know I c'n see you, right?"

Miles didn't even look up from where he sat, a screw held between his lips as he stared down on the exposed interior of his scanner with a frown.

"No you can't! I'm not even here!"

Miles sighed.

Was this how Sonic felt?

Amy Rose had tracked him down three times at this point, twice last night and again this morning. A feat made even more impressive by the fact that the moment he saw her each time he had flown away, at a velocity approaching the speed of sound, with randomised course changes each time. If he didn't know better - and he'd checked anyway - he'd have suspected she'd slipped a tracking device into the clothes she gave him.

"Why are you following me?"

Yamaguchi, this wasn't about the waterfall was it? She'd been obsessed with Sonic well before he rescued her, so she wasn't about to stalk him over some rescue fantasy, was she?

"I've never seen a space alien before."

"... What?" Miles looked up, staring at her 'hiding place' between some flowers, her pink spines sticking well above the foliage. "I 'm _not_ 'n alien."

… Unless he was? He'd met an alien tanuki before, after all. Maybe there was a planet of unaging multitailed vulpine super intelligences somewhere? Or had been, and his parents had decided to send him to Earth, where its chaos emeralds would grant him the ability to become a cape wearing superhero?

… Nah, that would be dumb. Would almost excuse the name though, maybe obnoxiously bad puns were a means of affection on Prowerworld?

"Are you even listening to me?" Amy snapped, popping out of her hiding place with her hands on her hips.

"Hm? Nope." Miles popped the screw out of his mouth, finger tightening it back into the case. "Nothing after the "you're a space alien" part, sorry."

"I was proving how you were a space alien!" Amy stamped her foot. "You're supposed to listen!"

"Fine. Elaborate on your hypothesis, _why_ do you think I'm a space alien?"

Amy paused, staring at him.

"Okay, first, you talk like _that_. Second, you can swim. Mobians can't swim."

Well, she had him there. More Mobians could fly than swim, and he could do both.

"Third, you call Mobius "Little Planet", and Big Planet "Earth". Normally only Biglanders do that, but _you_ didn't even know when Big Planet was coming."

"Are you sure I'm not just bad at astronomy?"

"And! You said you were going back to your mama, but instead you came out in the middle of nowhere to work on that _thing_. Clearly Mama is a secret code for the evil robot tentacle monster overlord you work for!"

"Mhm. Great." Miles tapped a button on his scanner, it beeped twice, then died in a shower of sparks. "Darn it."

"So!" Amy raised her finger. "You are clearly a space alien, here to stage an invasion of Big Planet, and you are working on a doomsday device to destroy the world once and for all!"

Miles just stared at her.

"So if I'm a space alien invader with a doomsday device, why follow me?"

"Well... I figured when you try to invade Big Planet I could see Sonic the Hedgehog come and beat you up." She dropped back behind the flowers, staring out over them at him.

Miles blinked, still staring, struggling to maintain his poker face…

And failed.

He burst out laughing.

"You sure are one of a kind, A- _Pricklepear_."

"I said don't call me that!" Amy growled from the bushes. "Only my _Dad_ calls me that."

"Heh... Right, "Rosy"." Miles sighed, leaning back as he dropped his bricked scanner onto the grass. "Well, sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not invading anything, I'm not going anywhere near Sonic if I can help it, my "doomsday" scanner doesn't work, and I don't have a mama, overlord or otherwise. You may as well go home."

"Oh." Amy pouted. "So what are you scanning for?"

"If I tell you, will you go away?"

"Nope."

Miles sighed.

"I'm looking for the Time Stones."

Amy tilted her head. "To conquer Big Planet?"

"The Time Stones don't work on Earth. I suppose I could change my chronological position respective to Earth and conquer it in the past? Generally that would be pretty inefficient though, and you could achieve a similar result with a Chaos conversion matrix, the Master Emerald and six pounds of salted pea- uh, well, anyway, no."

"So... you want to conquer Mobius?"

"Why do I have to conquer anybody?"

"Well, what _are_ you doing then?"

Amy stared at him with the wide eyed damnation of youth and innocence. Miles frowned, pondering how best to get her away from him and kidnapped by a homicidal robot.

For her own good, of course.

"If I said I needed them to save the world, would you leave then?"

Amy's mouth went wide.

"So you're a hero?!" She clambered out of her hiding spot, edging closer.

Miles slapped a palm to his forehead.

"No, I'm definitely not a-"

"Is that why you can fly? How come you can move so fast? Do you know Sonic? Are you going to be fighting Doctor Robotnik? Is Prower your superhero name?"

"No. Directed thrust using a Minkowski rotary system. Sonic who? No, I'm not going to be fighting Robotnik. Sure, why not?"

"Now I _know_ you're lying." Amy wagged her finger. " _Everybody_ knows Sonic the Hedgehog! He's so dreamy." She fluttered her lashes as though the man was standing there himself, letting out a long sigh as she clutched her hands next to her cheek.

Yuck. Miles stuck out his tongue.

"Anyway, I've _really_ got a lot of stuff to do here." Like find basically all new parts or fabricate them from scratch, all without any of the tools he'd had in his pack.

"Can I help?"

"Wait, didn't you just say I was lying? What if I'm tricking you into helping with my schemes of world domination?"

"Well, then Sonic would come stop you anyway. And rescue me from your foul clutches!"

Amy span on one leg and swooned over towards him, Miles caught her, almost getting stabbed in the leg for his trouble.

"And if you're telling the truth, then I'll be a hero's sidekick! And then I could go to Big Planet and hang out with Sonic and we can go on adventures together and he will fall for my feminine willies!" She grinned up at him.

"Wiles."

"What?"

"Feminine _wiles_."

"Whatever." Amy sniffed. "They're undeniable, whatever they are." She leaned back in his grip, back of her hand to her forehead.

Miles let her fall, spikes first into the dirt.

"Hey!" She struggled, lodging herself deeper in the process. "You're so _mean-_ "

"Can you find them?" Miles leaned over her, expression serious. Calculating.

"Huh?"

"Time stones. Can you find them?"

"I- I think-"

"If you help me find the time stones, I will help you meet Sonic. After that, we never meet again, you never try to find me, you forget you ever saw me. Deal?"

Amy's eyes widened. Miles wasn't sure she heard anything after the word "Sonic".

"Deal!"

She gave a glorious grin that Miles was so familiar with and stretched out her hand. Miles grabbed it and helped her stand with a pop as her spikes came free.

"Great. Now, if my calculations are correct, you'd better stand still and cover your eyes, because we're about to see something pretty interesting."

Still holding Amy's hand, Miles turned and covered his eyes as light flashed on the horizon. A swarm of metallic insects poured from a network of machinery that had suddenly always been there. Miles nodded grimly as plants rapidly started mechanising around them.

"Welcome to the past."


	4. Chapter 4

English was a terrible language to talk about time travel with.

Miles lunged into a badnik shaped like a mosquito, crushing it with a kick that threw him into another, this one a wheeled ant. He leapt, crushing it to the floor before falling into a spin that sliced through a third badnik the shape of a butterfly. Metallic parts tumbled to the floor as time-infused seeds within blossomed instantly into pink petalled sunflowers the moment they were released from their machinery.

"Should be safe for a minute or two, grab as many parts as you can carry."

This was because "free will" was such a fundamentally important assumption of the English language that there was simply no easy term for a thing _inevitably_ coming to pass. This "will" happen, this "would" happen, both stemmed from the word "will", the idea that the speaker was merely "willing" the event to happen, with the implicit possibility always present that it might not, that the future was always subject to change, and nothing set in stone.

This broke down when it came to time travel.

Approximately thirty-one days from now, Eggman _had_ invaded Little Planet. An event that had already happened, in the future, with consequences now occurring here, in the present, which was also, simultaneously, the past, thanks to the time network that was now being "having been already" built here.

And because Eggman _had_ won, in the future/present, he had conquered the planet here, in the present/past, paving the way for him having already conquered the planet in the Future.

Presumably, Miles mused as he straightened, pockets bulging with components, Robotnik won intentionally _without_ using the support of the forces that were retroactively present on the planet, because otherwise his entire invasion had a very real chance of disappearing in a puff of logic the moment Sonic destroyed a few generators.

Which meant that _he_ could destroy these badniks and hunt down time stones here, in the present/past, without risking anything except giving Sonic a slightly easier time when he came through to destroy the badnik generators.

Probably.

"So what are you using these for?" Amy asked from behind a pile of metal limbs, trembling pink legs protruding from underneath.

"Weapons, probably." Miles shrugged, leaning against a signpost with the word "FUTURE" inscribed on it in gold. "Might make some shield generators or antifriction fields too."

Worst case he could leave them around the area for Sonic to grab.

"Hmph. Heroes are best when they just use their muscles."

"Not a hero. Just saving the world." Miles grabbed enough of the pile for the hedgehog's eyes to poke out above the remainder. "Are we close?"

"I think so?" Amy attempted to shrug and almost dropped the rest of her burden. "It's not like I- Hey!"

"Hm?" Miles turned back, having placed the rest of the pile back in her arms.

"Shouldn't you be a gentleman and carry some of this stuff?"

"Huh? I just said to grab what you could carry though?"

"Mean."

"Just leave some behind if you're having- Hold on." Miles glanced up. High above he could see a familiar craft, bulky and round, with a flat bay on the bottom for cargo transport. "That might be it. Stay here, and if anything comes, just pretend to be a junk pile until I get back."

Amy's "Hey!" dopplered down an octave as Miles left at a sprint, parts tumbling from his pockets as his feet pounded over glassmetal grass with a tinny sound, hopping from surface to surface as he climbed up once natural inclines, building up height and momentum as he went until finally launching into the sky, tails spinning as he soared upwards, arms outstretched towards the ungainly UFO…

And sailed past as it turned ninety degrees on a dime.

"Ugh." He'd forgotten how _annoying_ these things were. Miles switched the angle of his tails and soared up and to the side, panting as his tails reached their maximum spin. He started losing altitude, dropping down beside the ship and lunged, fingers slipping around the angular platform on the base of the craft to dangle down beneath it one-handed.

The UFO turned again, swinging Miles out beneath it as it tried to dislodge him, but he clung tighter, fingers twisting metal beneath his grip as he clambered up its side, strategically punching propulsors apart with his bare hands until it couldn't keep itself aloft and started descending.

Only then did Miles get to look down, staring out across the rolling plains of Palmtree Panic as it faded into a sandy desert, the mountain he'd fallen from jutting up in the distance, Amy's village barely visible at its base…

And the creeping mechanisation crawling slowly across the landscape towards it.

That was going to be fine… right?

But then he was too low, and too fast, to see more. A moment later Miles hopped up as the UFO smashed into the ground in front of Amy, exploding into pieces, a green crystal bursting from the wreckage. He caught it from the air, feeling it slide into his hammerspace just as the pink stone had done before it.

"-ool."

"Huh?" Miles rubbed his head, explosion still ringing in his ears.

"I said that was _super cool_!" Amy clapped from her seat atop her self-made scrap pile. "You all flew up there, bjoooo! And then it was like, PSHOO! But you were like, Nope! And then you went all reeeeee KABOOM!"

"Well, yeah, I was there."

"How did you make it crash right back here though?" Amy stared at him, eyes sparkling.

"Applied trigonometry, mainly."

"And you just stopped being cool."

"Maths is _very_ cool."

"Nuh uh."

"Yuh huh."

"Nuh- Wah!" Amy flailed as Miles lifted the pile she was sat on, her included. "Wh-what are you doing?"

"What? You wanted me to help, right?" Miles smiled. "And this way we might actually get you back home to your family for dinner."

"What? But we're on a mission!"

"And that mission will take a month if you trying to carry every badnik from here to Desert Dazzle. We'll get you some sleep and I can make something out of all this stuff for tomorrow."

"But-"

"Can't hear you, breaking the sound barrier."

"WHaaaaaaaaaa~"

Minutes after they had left, the signpost they had stood beside began to crackle and glow as the time network began to activate.


	5. Chapter 5

Technology was magic, and science a sword.

Well, that sounded oxymoronic. But at its core nothing could be more true. From the first cavemobian making fire to the ancient echidnas carving the landscape with the power of the chaos emeralds and raising islands to fly above the sea, evil old women turning people into crystals or humans overcoming the food spoiling demons with the power of refrigeration, everything was science, everything was technology, but being so didn't make it any less of a miracle, however much people took it for granted.

And however much people took it for granted, it was still just a sword. A sword someone like Miles could sharpen as much and as long as he needed to cut apart any problem. A sword he could put away after the fighting ended, and could pretend, at least when he didn't think about it too hard, that he couldn't just draw it again whenever he wanted. That he wasn't just like Eggman, who _accidentally_ ended the world in his future because he was too good at making technology and too bad at remembering to turn it off.

But when Miles was working?

That was when _real_ magic happened.

All his worries could fade away. The dull, gnawing stress and constant lonely dysphoria that was his life after Happy Days had filled his every waking moment with warmth, comfort, happiness and friendship for hundreds of years. After his escape had him face his darkest fears and kill his dearest friends, the same friends he had considered for so long to be the only things standing between him, the world, and his own ruthless rationality. His own inner Eggman. Here, listening to the sound of the waterfall, the Earth shining so bright in the sky above it was almost like daytime, here he could forget all that and just focus on science, on problems, on technology...

_B_ _eating your friends was so_ _**easy** _ _for you._

Well so much for that. Miles dropped both tool and project to the ground as he hunched over, eyes closed, breathing hard.

He'd tried to escape so many times only to give up each time when he discovered what he'd done, what he _kept_ doing every time he tried to leave. The only reason he'd managed to escape this time was because Doodle, his fellow prisoner and a partial genetic clone of Eggman, had shown him the true cost of keeping him in Happy Days.

She'd helped him escape that nightmare… And he was going to wipe her from existence too. Probably just going to kill her baby self when he destroyed Happy Days, because infanticide was just one more part of the horror he'd become inside.

"Hey, you okay?"

Miles lurched upright, eyes snapping open. Amy's cheeks turned pale as she stepped back.

"Whoa, calm down Prower, it's just me."

"Huh?" Miles stared down at his hand. When did he grab the cannon? "Oh… Rosy." Just what he needed. Miles tossed the weapon back to the floor, turning his head away. "Couldn't sleep? Too excited?"

"I sneaked you out some dinner. Figured you might be hungry. Sorry I woke you."

"Wasn't sleeping, but thanks." Miles smiled brightly. "Been awhile since I ate anything solid."

Centuries in fact. And, since the life support fluid he'd been surviving on had been in his backpack, over a day since he ate anything at all.

"So what is it you've been making? Apart from the alien ray gun, obviously."

"It's just a regular ray gun." Miles took a bite of the food, starch and protein. He didn't pay much attention, fuel for the machine. It felt like a rock in his stomach. "Few bombs, two kinds of shield generator. Mostly tools."

"Heroing tools?" Amy sounded hopeful.

"Tools to make better tools." Miles mercilessly skewered her optimism.

Amy made a face at him. "You know I could have asked my dad to lend you some, right?"

"Yeah? He have a spare one of these?" Miles picked up the tool he dropped with a grunt. A small beam of energy crackled from its tip as he held the on switch. "Cuts and shapes metal like butter. Saves a lot of time."

She looked slightly more impressed by that, at least. Though why he wanted to impress her was beyond him. Even looking at her made his stomach hurt.

Maybe it was because "his" Amy spent so much time thinking about Sonic, and moulding herself into something she thought might appeal to Sonic, there wasn't much room left to care about anything or anyone else, especially anything he did. Part of him suspected she would charge off trying to find Sonic at any moment.

The other part kept reminding him that his Amy was dead.

Amy poked him in the cheek.

"Wh-what?" Miles flinched.

"You spaced out again. Weren't you showing me stuff? You're not going to be popular with girls if you keep ignoring them."

"Hm? There's not much left to show, it was only a few badnik's worth of parts. I made a new backpack I guess?" He held up his latest project. "It's just metal fibres woven together with my old hoodie. Should let me load up on more parts tomorrow."

"Wait, where did you find metal fibre?"

Miles just flicked his beam knife on and off again. "It's amazing what you can do with superior physical attributes and the right tools."

"Well aren't _you_ humble?"

"I thought you liked Sonic? I promise you, he knows _exactly_ how good he is."

"So you _do_ know him."

"Obviously." Miles sniffed. " _Everybody_ knows Sonic the Hedgehog. He's _so_ dreamy." He fluttered his lashes.

"Hey!" Amy punched him in the shoulder.

Miles rubbed his arm with a grin. Good thing she _wasn't_ his Amy. He'd have probably been swatted to the other side of the waterfall. Still hurt though, why would a girl think it was okay to hit someone like that?

"So do you really know him? Like, in person?" Amy leaned forward, eyes bright in the light of the Earth above.

"Little bit." Miles set the pack aside, picking up another piece of robotic chassis to work into shape.

Little bit better than anyone else in the world, that was. At least at this point in the timeline, before Amy had met him and developed into a full grade stalker.

"So? What's he like?" Amy scooched closer.

What a question.

Miles had been in Sonic's shadow so long he might almost _be_ his shadow. How could he even begin? Sonic's determination and courage, his love of freedom so intense he was more like a force of nature than a living, breathing mobian in so many ways. He never had a job, never had a home. It was frankly a mystery to him how he'd ever managed to acquire a plane in the first place, let alone find the patience to maintain it.

And Miles, like any good shadow, had spent his life filling Sonic's negative space so completely that perhaps the best answer to what Sonic was like was to look at Miles and think about the opposite. Where Sonic was thoughtless, Miles would think for him. When speed wasn't the answer, Miles would carry him. Where Sonic was rootless, barely able to function in society, Miles tirelessly built home after home across the world so Sonic would always have somewhere to rest his head when he needed it, always have enough to eat when he came by.

And where Sonic was determined and fearless, Miles was hesitant and afraid. Where he was charismatic and friendly, Miles was reserved and forgettable. Where Sonic was noble and heroic, Miles was ruthless and pragmatic. Where Sonic was _always_ true to himself, whatever the cost, Miles, like any shadow, was _lost_ without Sonic, desperately struggling and forever failing to be something better. To be _anything_ but the baby-faced killer who knew what "burnt person" smelled like because napalm had just been so much more _efficient_ than regular explosives.

Who could remember his friends whispering in his ears, begging for mercy.

_What did you_ _**do** _ _to her, Tails?_

"H-hey! Are you alright? You're crying."

"I'm sor-" Miles sniffed, wiping his eyes with a sleeve. "I'm sorry. It- it's just… he's so _cool_ I get choked up thinking about it."

"Wow, really?" Amy's eyes sparkled excitedly and she pressed even closer.

"Yes, he's… He's just so... good at _maths_."

Amy shoved him in the water.


	6. Chapter 6

There wasn't a cloud in the sky.

The moment that fact registered on Miles' subconscious, he jolted upright, eyes bleary with sleep as he jerked his gaze this way and that.

There was a slight rainbow in the air over the plunge pool, reeds still a little bent where they'd been trampled two days prior. The sun was just peeking over the mountains in the distance. His back was a little stiff, his stomach felt the worse for wear from eating last night for the first time in forever, and one of his tails felt awf... oh. Right, Amy had dozed off watching him work last night and now dozed against the limb, a clear puddle of drool soaked into his fur.

Gross. Miles nodded in satisfaction.

 _Not_ Happy Days.

Probably.

With a yawn, Miles briefly entertained the thought of snuggling back down until the sun crept higher and warmed his fur before rejecting the notion. He had both around four weeks and barely days before Sonic started showing up here in the Past. If he'd only thought to ask Sonic how far mechanisation had progressed in the surrounding environment when he was telling the story, Miles could have a better working model on figuring out a better approximation. As it was, there was a real risk that Sonic might find the Time Stones here in the past, as well as another, secondary, possibility that the moment Amy saw him would be the moment that Miles lost her.

As an asset.

Miles started down at the young hedgehog, whose spikes were only mildly stabbing him right now, idly observing her sleeping face. Inuring himself to her presence.

In just a few years she would change so much her own family probably would have trouble recognising her. Suddenly paying a keen interest in fashion, shaving the spines off her back - no simple feat, considering their hardness - to look more "feminine". Even going through the considerable pain and effort to carve the quills on her head into the bob-shaped "echidna" style fashionable among hedgehogs in human territories. Particularly popular among the humans in those territories, in fact, since an adult mobian's head was generally at crotch height.

Well, Sonic never really cared about Amy's appearance either way, of course. But Miles had appreciated it. As the person most likely to carry her out of the various danger zones her stalking habits led her into, no longer having to worry about putting an eye out had been a big quality of life improvement for him.

Well, that and if anyone could appreciate someone changing themselves for someone else it was him. Especially given who she had/would be changing for, and how much she'd given up to do it.

Amy sighed in her sleep, fidgeting to get comfortable and burrowing her spines even deeper into his tail as in the process.

Well this wouldn't do. Miles leaned over with a grunt, planting his fuzzy face by her ear.

"Rosy."

…

" _Rosy._ " He rose his voice.

The hedgehog muttered without waking.

"Fine." Taking in a deep breath, Miles blew a steady stream of air directly into her ear.

The effect was immediate. Miles barely pulled out of the way as her green eyes snapped open, arms rising to wrap over her ears.

"Eugggghhh. Whyyyy?" Amy shivered. "I _hate_ that."

"I know." Miles grinned smugly down at her.

"Huh?" Amy tilted her head, rocking spines across his tail.

Because this wasn't _nearly_ the first time he'd had to wake her up.

"Because everybody hates that." Miles nodded sagely. "Anyway, figured you might want to wake up, get breakfast, maybe see if you can pretend to your parents that you weren't out all night with a two-tailed hobo, that sort of thing."

"Oh Hoshino! It's morning?!" Amy heaved up into a sitting position. "Why didn't you wake me sooner?"

"You think this is the first time I tried?" Miles leaned back with a lazy grin. "See you after breakfast!" He waved as she bolted towards her house.

Well, it _was_ , actually. Her soft snores had faded into the white noise of the waterfall, and her weight on him had been _sort_ of soothing. Like acupuncture?

Well it would probably be fine, from what he'd seen of mobian parenting methods, which was admittedly a sample size of one, parents had a pretty _laissez faire_ attitude towards their offspring even when fat sociopathic humans were rampaging across the countryside, so dozing off a few hundred meters from home should be perfectly fine. He grabbed his hoodie from the grass beside him, zipping it shut front and back before pulling it down over his head. Time to get busy waiting.

* * *

"And there's stone number four." Miles watched the ball of plasma crackle through the sky, towards the UFO. Seconds later, energy exploded from its side, and the ship began a long spiralling descent into the distant desert. "And you said guns aren't cool." He blew smoke from the barrel of his energy cannon.

"Guns _aren't_ cool." Amy snapped, arms folded over her chest. "Before you were doing flips, jumping and flying and being _awesome_." She turned away, still sour faced. " _Now_ we're just walking all over the place picking up junk you shot."

"So you think I'm awesome?"

"N-"

"Okay, fine, guns are slightly less super awesome than you think I am." Miles shrugged. "But at least we're making up for lost time now?"

"We wouldn't have _lost_ that time if you hadn't got me in trouble with my parents." Amy pouted.

"Well, how was I supposed to know that they'd be mad?"

"I never came home last night! How did you think they were going to react?" Amy glared at him. "...You have absolutely no idea, do you?"

"Nope, sorry. All my parents ever did was leave me a note. Literally." Miles shrugged, holding out his hand. "Anyway, let's go over there to pick up the junk I shot."

"You want to know the worst thing?" Amy grumbled, taking his hand with her own. "When my dad was yelling at me he asked why I couldn't be more like yoooooooouuu!" Her complaint was both elongated and cut short as Miles surged into a sprint, ending the conversation at the speed of sound.

"Alright." Miles skidded to a halt well short of their destination, sand spraying before him. "The stone's somewhere up ahead. Stay here and be careful."

By the time Amy had started to complain about getting dragged across half a zone Miles was already launching forward, hopping off the top of a FUTURE sign to grab a few extra power rings from the sky as he went. Like the Time Stones they absorbed into his body, a place not quite hammerspace. Perhaps some local, time related variant? If he could-

Wait, focus. Sonic had never mentioned entering the desert when he was here, which meant this was new and uncharted territory. Miles glanced from side to side as he approached relatively slowly - for him - taking in all available details of his environment. The mountains here were starting to show signs of change as Robotnik's mechanisation process stripped minerals from their surface - possibly vanadium or chromium compounds? - leaving sheer slopes of angular brown where the rock had previously been soft purples worn smooth by time. The sand too was losing its purple tinge as well, with roughly circular patches of disturbed sand in both colours spread across its surface as though something had been buried beneath. Mined? Maybe some kind of bot? Avoid.

Feet lightly tapping against the sand, Miles jogged forward, slipping between one field after another of distorted sand as he grew closer to the fallen UFO, the lack of badniks lent itself a growing sense of unease as he approached. Closer. Closer…

There. Sparkling against the sand. Miles reached down to snag it without slowing, unsurprised when it didn't immediately vanish into hammerspace.

This was the time stone he'd already picked up, after all, two centuries in the future. Rose pink, neither damaged nor even stained by the destruction of the UFO around it and buzzing faintly in his hand.

Uh… That _should_ work out fine. Right? Universe could handle future selves meeting each other okay. Though technically people, even time displaced ones, would share comparatively little actual matter after a year or two, while there was a very real possibility that the time stones were four dimensional objects and holding two at once like this was causing a potentially explosive paradoxical interaction between the two.

Miles carefully, very, very carefully, placed the new stone into his pack, using a natural overhang to redirect his momentum back in the opposite direction in a smooth arc. Time to get out of here and-

There, sunlight flashed on metal on a ledge overhead. A sniper. Miles leapt. While, unlike Sonic, he _wasn't_ able to travel faster than bullets at top speed, he _was_ plenty fast enough to react to someone pulling a trigger and move out of the way.

Provided, of course, that the bullet was aimed at him.

With a surprised scream and a shower of golden rings Amy fell to the floor in the distance.


	7. Chapter 7

People often underestimated badniks.

Miles continued accelerating, toes trailing in the sand as he hurtled towards Amy, sparkling gold rings still bouncing around her body.

How could they not? Mobians were _tiny_ compared to humans, yet anyone could pull up a few hastily recorded videos showing single mobians _decimating_ a squad of badniks.

Miles' feet trailed over a patch of discoloured sand. A microsecond later the surface tension gave way, something that would have been deadly to the momentum of someone running over it. Miles skimmed over the top as a whirring drill slammed up through the surface, skewering where he'd been moments before.

But what these people didn't appreciate is that these mobians almost invariably shared a few key features - incredible proportional speed, incredible proportional strength, and a body that could walk off things that would turn most things their size into roadkill.

Amy's tiny pink form crawled across the sand, leaping to recover one of the rings that had erupted from her body, protecting her from the first shot. Another commonly overlooked mobian advantage. While rings weren't everywhere, so long as a mobian had ring energy they instinctively reacted to physical trauma with an ablative forcefield to prevent and regenerate injuries. Basically the only way to easily take down a mobian was to crush it or drown it, and even then it wasn't a _guaranteed_ kill.

Another shot. Miles tried to leap to intercept it with his own body but failed. Amy screamed again as the impact hurled her dozens of feet backwards, her reclaimed ring tumbling out once more and flickering into non-existence as she sprawled across the sand.

So really, what people _should_ have been seeing when they looked at badniks was how great an inventor Eggman was to be able to create _anything_ that could withstand multiple impacts from small furry meteors striking them with the equivalent force of bunker busters.

Amy struggled to stand before the ground beneath her gave way. A bullet blasted into the sand beside her as she descended out of sight with a terrified cry of "Prower!"

Miles didn't bother replying. At the speed he was going, he'd reach her before his words did.

Even the "lesser" models, for all their sometimes goofy appearance, for all their gimmicks, for all their looking like they were crafted by a lunatic, had three core features that couldn't be ignored:

They hit _hard_ enough that they could sometimes, if not always, injure or kill lifeforms that could slam into a wall at mach five and bounce off with a giggle.

They moved _fast_ enough that they could sometimes, if not often, manage to hit someone that could run at mach five while reacting to the obstacles in his path.

And they were mass produced in numbers _large_ enough to make those combined mathematical improbabilities together approach one.

Miles launched upwards once more, building up height as he climbed above the reach of a dozen more clustered sand traps. Snakelike badniks erupted from the sand to "spit" rapidfire bursts that left him in bullet hell while drill bots turned the surface into a deadly quagmire of sand and spinning steel.

Probably for the best that Sonic didn't come here. Miles pressed harder, higher. Now he could see Amy, crawling up the side of a steep sand pit, struggling as the sand dragged her deeper towards an antlion style badnik with massive snapping jaws.

Where was the sniper though? With Amy currently hidden below the edge of the pit, he was the logical target choice, but it had stopped firing.

 _What_ was the sniper though? Badniks were powerful, but they _weren't_ built for long range. Trying to snipe Sonic, the usual target they were designed to work against, was a fool's errand. It was only when they were up close and personal that they had a hope of landing a hit.

Miles went into a dive, hurtling back down to earth.

And targeting civilians? The fat man certainly didn't _mind_ when his forces exterminated people as they conquered territory, and he was certainly willing to use people as living shields or bait - Amy had a date with destiny on that front in twenty-seven days after all. But as a narcissist, he preferred live slaves. Going for the kill on a little girl was out of character for him. For Miles, the worst case scenario was happening. Exactly what he'd wanted to avoid by rushing ahead.

Things were going off script.

Slamming face first into the FUTURE sign, Miles sent it spinning before he hit the ground running... Well his legs weren't actually involved much. With his body angled to generate lift from the incoming air and his tails spinning to generate thrust he had more in common with a hydrofoil or GEV than- Wait. Focus. Miles slipped to the side as another spray of snake bullets hurtled past him. Sand was clearer here, possibly because to avoid interfering with the antlion? Energy crackled from his fur, white sparks trailing out into the air behind him.

"Prower!" Amy's dopplered yell squeaked out of the hole ahead. Miles didn't slow down, stretching his arms out as he soared over the edge. Amy was almost at the bottom, green eyes wide with fear as metal jaws crept ever closer. Miles still didn't slow down, slamming into Amy and wrapping her tight in his arms as he charged straight into the antlion's maw.

Just before impact the world turned blinding white for a camera flash moment, then everything turned hard, black and abrasive.

"Close your eyes and hold your breath." Miles whispered into the dark.

A terrible request to make. He'd just knocked most of the breath out of her on impact. Miles could feel Amy's heart beating rapidly as she was crushed into him by a mountain of sand that, circa twenty-seven days ago, hadn't been here.

It could have been worse of course. Phasing into solid rock would have been impossible to escape, rather than merely incredibly difficult.

Well, first things first.

With short, sawing movements Miles dragged his arms off of Amy's body, his abnormally powerful muscles straining to shift each individual grain as he brought his free hand down to his pocket and his cannon slowly, dreadfully slowly back, twisted it up, little by little…

Finally.

Miles shot himself in the back of the head.

A flash of light momentarily illuminated the interior of Miles' skull as high energy plasma shone through closed eyelids like a miniature sun. Amy squealed in surprise as the sand next to her grew uncomfortably hot, molten glass encasing Miles' skull.

And just like Amy, his body instinctively consumed the ring energy he had collected to shield himself from the impact, the remainder coalescing into new unstable rings that erupted from his body.

Just as planned.

Dozens of rings ejected directly from Miles straight into the tiny space the two of them were stuck in, pouring straight into the ringless Amy. Moments later, Miles left hand reached the device in his pocket, thumbing the button and gritting his teeth.

Now _this_ was going to suck.

The bomb in his pocket detonated.

At that point, several things happened at once. Or close enough to at once that even for Miles' overclocked neurology the exact order of events was irrelevant.

His eardrum ruptured from the point blank shockwave.

Sand erupted around them like a volcano, momentarily exposing bright sunlight.

His abdomen caved inwards from the concussive force.

The shield generator sat next to the bomb fractured, encasing his body in an ablative shell of energy that faded just as quickly as it protected him from the remainder of the blast.

That was-

The second bomb in his other pocket exploded in a chain reaction, blasting Amy clear of the pit in a trail of rings while blowing him back into the ground.

… Yep.

Miles coughed blood into the sand around him, ears ringing and head spinning. Just as he predicted, that sucked pretty bad. At least a few of Amy's rings had blasted back into him, so now she was clear he could-

A metal claw thrust into the sand, clamping down on his torso and dragging him upwards to dangle, coughing and spluttering, before a giant gun metal grey mecha with a fat man for a head.

"..." The man, chestnut moustache quivering, gave a booming laugh Miles couldn't hear.

" _What?!_ " Miles yelled, rubbing a finger in his still intact ear to a stream of sand. "Sorry! You're gonna have to hold on a second."

The ringing slowly faded, replaced by the mechanical rumbling of Robotnik's machine as it shook him. Amy's reclaimed rings tumbled from his body in defence of his already battered ribcage, his cannon dropping to the sand below.

"Okay, I think that did it. Were you villain ranting or expositing? Do you want to start again? I know you work hard on these speeches." Miles coughed, red misting over the robot's claw.

"Do I…." Robotnik squinted behind blue tinted glasses, a frown growing under his moustache. "Know you, little fox?"

… Huh. That was almost more disconcerting than with Amy. When was this again? He wanted to say… sometime after Angel Island, maybe? Which should mean that his younger self was on a witch hunt over on Metal Island right now, a few encounters with Eggman under his non-existent belt. Could this be earlier? Could West Side have not occurred yet? In _that_ case if Sonic retrieved the time stones… wouldn't he be a stranger right now, with no reason to trust the strange fox demanding he hand them over?

Ugh. Hopefully it was just the magic of being taller and wearing clothing. Whatever, he was supposed to be incognito anyway. Also his lungs were being crushed worse than they already were.

"Uhhh... Stop right there, uh, evil doer! I am Prower, defender of Little Planet, and ally of Soni- hey!"

The robot's second claw snapped down, tearing his backpack away and passing it to its pilot.

"Ah hah! I _knew_ someone was messing with my network." The pink time stone tumbled from the bag into his white gloved hand along with Miles' last shield generator. "To think _that hedgehog_ got here already."

"You made a _time network_. He _gets_ here four weeks ago in three weeks' time."

"What th- Oh." Robotnik made a face.

"Yeah, time travel is the worst." Miles shrugged.

"Anyway, I'd really _best_ be going. You'll be the perfect bait for your little blue boyfriend."

"Wait, no... monologue first?" Miles strained against the claw to no avail.

"Sorry, I don't have... _time_." Robotnik laughed wildly.

Miles would have groaned if the robot's grip hadn't been quite so tight.


	8. Chapter 8

Humans were amazing.

If mobians' ethos as a species - genus? - was to be hard to _hurt_ , then humans as a species were hard to _kill_. The sheer capacity for humans to survive punishment that for most mobians would spell a quick death without ring energy was a superpower so extraordinary that humans routinely exposed themselves to poisonous substances just for the fun of it.

Miles gazed out in front of him as desert began to give way to blue metal, still struggling against the increasingly crimson-stained claw that held him.

He was _not_ like most mobians.

While he had nowhere _near_ a human level of fortitude, the young - for a given value of young - fox had survived spikes, lasers, crushers, giant robots smashing his face into walls, broken bones and burns, things that other mobians would have spelled a quick death by system shock. With ' _He'd had worse, he'd done worse.'_ as his mantra, he'd kept bouncing back time and time again, long past the point he wished he didn't, relying on the regenerative properties of rings or his own inventions to patch him up on the move.

He probably hadn't had worse this time.

Two point blank explosions had left him a _mess_. His entire lower half felt numb and unresponsive, and his growing chill and nausea indicated that he was succumbing to blood loss, and probably the destruction of a few of his more important organs. Game over pretty soon at this rate, and that was something that the "good" Doctor currently holding him captive - and currently singing some theme song to himself - wasn't likely to even notice before setting him up in suitable "bait" position.

Well, that was assuming he survived that long. If he was tied up in the same place as Amy would be, that was the Stardust Speedway, while the blue structure they'd just entered looked to be… the Wacky Workbench, heart of the invasion's weapons manufacturing division, one full zone over. Plenty of time for his survival instinct to give up the struggle it had been fighting for the past few hundred years.

At least Amy was probably okay for the moment. Time was convergent, so now she was stuck in the present/future she'd hopefully wander the Salad Plains until she met Sonic, safely away from here or the sniper gunning for her in the past.

"P-put Prower _down_!"

The mech halted, as did the singing, thankfully, and turned. There, standing at the entrance to the workbench, standing astride a long, thin trail of blood that had presumably come from him, was a dust stained Amy Rose.

"Another brat?" Robotnik sneered. "I only need _one_ of you, little girl, so tell you what. Why don't _you_ choose which of you I keep alive?"

"N… no!" Amy raised a trembling hand, Miles' energy cannon in her grasp. "You… you let Prower go now, or- or I'll fight you!"

Aw. Miles smiled.

Too bad his energy cannon wasn't actually powerful enough to do any real damage to one of Eggman's boss mechs. The metal armour was too thick.

Hm. Actually... Miles raised a single blood-soaked tail to coil around the mech's arm as he reached into the back of his tattered glove.

"So _brave_." Robotnik let out a maniacal chuckle. "I guess I'll let _you_ live." His face fell once more. "Which means I don't need your friend anymore." The robot squeezed tighter.

"No!" Amy fired, the blast sending her flying back onto her backside as crackling plasma scorched towards the mecha.

"Heh. Nice try." The walker didn't even budge, a sooty stain the only sign it had been hit at all.

"Thanks." Miles grinned through bloody teeth, laser cutter held in his hand as he dangled from the stump of the mech's arm by a tail. The claw fell to the ground in pieces.

"No way! I can't believe this!"

The doctor slammed his fist down onto his control panel. Miles dropped as the second claw clamped down where he'd been hanging, landing with a surge of pain that exploded up through his spine.

Don't stop. Miles pushed himself unsteadily upright, fur crimson with his own blood as he stumbled forward to the walker's legs.

"Stay still!" Robotnik roared before ducking down with a yelp. A blast of plasma exploded across his cockpit, the claw he swung missing Miles by inches.  
"Gotta… go…" Miles lunged into the mech's leg, cutter slicing through the metal like butter. "Fast."

Miles flopped down to the floor as the machine tilted above him. Amy charged forward, grabbing his hand and pulling him out of the way as the mech crashed to the floor with a deafening metallic boom.

"Come on!"

Tear-filled green eyes came up next to his own, dried blood, hopefully his, smeared across her face. Miles forced his legs to start moving, eyes blearily scanning the facility ahead. He felt unbalanced, dizzy.

"You'll pay for this!" Robotnik's furious ranting faded behind them as they ran deeper into the facility.

"It'll be okay, Prower, we'll get you a doctor. Some rings, it'll be okay."

… Huh. Why was _she_ crying? Miles pushed her arm up, hammering the trigger to blast a two foot long bee-bot as they ran. She was fine. It was just him after all.

"Okay, Amy, I'm pretty... sure I can't fly us... right now, so I need you to listen, okay?"

Something between shock and a grimace crossed Amy's face. Miles shoved the two of them to the side as another bee launched a fireball at them. The heat sent another dull wave of agony up his spine.

"First, give me the gun." He slipped it from her hands and blasted the bee-bot into fragments. The seed within burst into a half mechanical flower with pale yellow petals. "Now, you need to find us a _past_ sign… with a... spring next to it, or a hole. Anything to... build up speed."

"... Okay." Amy nodded grimly, "I'll try."  
"Don't be scared." Miles squeezed her hand. "I'm going to be right here with you, okay? We'll get you safe."

By _Yamaguchi_ he hurt.

But Miles kept running. Not slowing down hedgehogs with his problems was the habit of a lifetime. Jump. Climb. Shoot. It hurt when he tried to move his tails, so just keep running. It hurt every step. Just keep running. Shoot. Duck. Jump. Climb.

Just keep running.

"Prower."

Just keep-

"Prower!"

"Huh?" Miles blinked groggily at her. They weren't running?

"Is this okay?" Amy pointed with a glove stained by fire and blood. A PAST sign stood before them, a ramp alongside it leading down into a maintenance chute. "I couldn't find a spring."

"Great job." Miles raised a hand. Apparently one of _his_ gloves had burned partially away. He wasn't sure when. Might have been that way already? Whatever. The fur on his fingertips stood on end as he touched the surface of the sign, light crackling between fingers like static. "Okay, we're going to roll together, then we're going to fall down that chute. You're going to have to hold on _tight_ , okay? Don't let go."

"Okay."  
Planting his hands unsteadily on the floor, Miles started spinning his feet in place. Panting. Faster, faster, building momentum until his legs were an orange blur around him.

And… release.

Miles tucked his head down and released, turning all that energy into a lightning quick forward roll. A spin dash. Friction shredded his jacket even worse than before as he rolled, letting out an involuntary scream as the motion made him feel like he was tearing in half. Thin, furless arms squeezed tight around his broken body.

 _Please_ let this be enough. The absolute minimum speed for successfully time leaping was theoretically breaking the sound barrier. His spin dash should be enough, but if they hit something, he wasn't sure if he'd be able to pull it off again.

Flash.

Green replaced blue. Sunlight bathed them appeared as the roof became unfinished and walls became scaffold, and the two of them plopped into a heap.

"You did it! I can get us out of here!" Amy leapt up with a smile, reaching down for him.

"No." Miles raised a finger, trying to remember a moment before pointing to a gap between two piles of building material. "There."

He couldn't run now, even at Amy's pace. Walking was almost too much, so she carried him, the spines at the nape of her neck digging gently into his arm as she hoisted him forward, step by step, her own legs trembling from exertion.

"You did… good." Miles smiled wearily, coughing up a fresh fountain of blood over his tattered jacket. "You should be fine from... here."

"Don't talk like that, Prower!" Amy's eyes welled up with tears again. "We're going to get you some help, okay?"

"Huh?" Miles blinked dully as they stumbled into a small room. Dim light poured in through the opening to illuminate the stone face of a winged human woman carved into the far wall. "We just did though?"

Rings showered across the floor. Miles fell onto one with a sigh of relief. Another shower followed, clinging gently across the floor to be absorbed.

"What is this place?" Amy breathed in wonder, walking forward to touch the smooth cheeks of the human.

"Ring energy condenser. Probably Ancient Echidna. No idea why they went with an angel." Miles rubbed his chin. "Well, it _is_ called Angel Island. Huh." More rings flowed into his body, he could already feel his injuries stabilising. "Robotnik's build team uncovered it and removed it during construction a few weeks from now. A hundred of these or so and I should be good as new... Well, perhaps a little anaemic."

"Will… Will it grow back?" Amy turned back to him, suddenly serious, her hands over her mouth.

"Huh? Sorry, rings only regenerate damaged tissue. You're going to have to wait for my fur to back on its own." He laughed. "Why, does it really look that bad?"

"...I am so, so sorry, Prower." Amy's eyes filled with tears again and she stepped towards him, arms outstretched.

"What are you-" Miles followed her gaze. "Oh."

There, ragged fur encrusted with sand and congealed blood, was the stump of his tail.

"Oh." He fell silent, staring.

Amy wrapped her arms around his shoulders and wept.


	9. Chapter 9

In the years when he had lived on Earth, before Happy Days, Miles had been... "tangentially" famous.

This had been more or less inevitable. As Sonic's sidekick, Miles was generally involved in the same cases of villain thwarting, and, unlike the hedgehog in question, Miles actually had fixed addresses, and a disposition that didn't lend itself to him simply running away from people bothering him.

So, while they - like everyone else in Miles' life - would have preferred to talk to Sonic, they instead went for the next best thing. Sonic's young _protégé_ , who Sonic rescued from a life of solitude and misery on West Side Island, where mean bullies threw things at him, yelled at him, hit him, and shunned him. And they'd talk about how kind Sonic was to take care of him, ask him endless questions about the blue hedgehog, mostly his whereabouts, sometimes about Miles' feelings about the blue hedgehog... Even a few asking if there was anything "more" between the two of them.

But a few, over the years, thinking to learn more about Miles himself, had got it into their heads to ask him this fateful question:

'Did you ever wish you were normal?'

On one level, Miles understood the reasoning behind question perfectly. He was - _had been_ \- Tails the Fox, the genetic oddity named for his mutation. The orphan "found" by the legendary Sonic the Hedgehog. The "victim of bullying" who had risen up to defeat Doctor Robotnik, a figure who even the biggest, most powerful nations in the world couldn't stand up to. He wasn't just a person, he was a symbol, a success story, the plucky underfox makes it big.

So Miles would smile, and he would talk about how hard it had been, how he had struggled, believed in himself and pushed through by being true to himself, making all the struggle and misery worth it in the end. Because he understood the value of a good narrative.

And he was lying. Because, like so many narratives, it was created with a goal other than the truth in mind. Because, like so many narratives, it needed people to not stop and think about what they were actually saying.

 _Nothing_ about Miles was normal.

Sure, his most noticeable feature was - _had been_ \- his twin tails, but he was also stronger than anything his size had any right to be, fast enough to outrun most man-made vehicles on foot, and a genius at such a high level that it gave him difficulty relating to most other people and certain older models of supercomputer. He held the record for the youngest person ever to possess all known chaos emeralds at once... All that, _and_ he was a member of a species so vanishingly rare that when Robotnik had conquered all of the mobian territories, the massive resistance army that formed had included exactly one fox - Miles himself.

If you took "abnormal" away from Miles Prower, there'd be nothing left. He was so _special_ that if he'd turned out to be the long prophesied chosen one destined to bring harmony to the universe it would have just been the perfect punchline to the cosmic joke that was his existence.

But while there were things he'd wished he hadn't _done_ , while he wished that he was _better_ , more _heroic_ , there had never been a single heartbeat when he'd wished he was _normal_.

He _never_ asked for this.

How could he? Sonic hadn't found him, _he_ had chased Sonic down. Sonic only _cared_ about him because Miles had been fast enough to keep up with him. Without his tails he, like so many others, would have been left in Sonic's dust. A nuisance to be avoided, a responsibility to be shirked in the interest of the absolute freedom that the hedgehog represented.

And now, irrational as it was, all that kept running through his head as he stared at the stump of fluff protruding not even an inch from his body was how he wouldn't be able to keep up anymore.

Even though he had no hero left to leave him behind, even though he knew and accepted that changing the timeline would erase him from existence, some childish part of him was still afraid of being abandoned.

But... he hadn't been.

Amy still sat in silence, slumped along beside him, frightened and miserable on his behalf. The ring fountain has long since healed her every injury, however minor, but her clothes were still stained and ragged where even their spike resistant fabric had been scorched and shredded by Badniks and other hazards. Her hair band was nowhere to be seen, and if he looked, he could see a patch of pink fur exposed over her heart from where the sniper had hit. The sniper that was still somewhen out there, trying to kill her for reasons he couldn't begin to guess.

Miles sighed, tearing his eyes away from his stump.

His greatest asset was now just a regular asset. No longer able to fly, unable to reach even half his previous speed, even the power of his strongest attack had been literally cut in two, he was literally _crippled_. But... he needed to get her home, or to Sonic, or to Eggman, or to whatever combination would get her current self back on track to travel safely to Earth, and keep her future self from ever even _hearing_ about Happy Days.

For the first time in a thousand rings, Miles stood, single tail whirling behind him, pulling his cannon onto his fist.

There was one _other_ thing that many of those journalists had written about him, something that they presumably never believed or never really thought about, otherwise they would have been far more interested in interviewing him than they were. Something that kept Miles awake at nights because he _had_ thought about it and the truth of the statement was terrifying.

'Tails the Fox can build inventions that rival Doctor Robotnik's.'

And here he was, sat in a half-built weapons factory, with enough resources to kickstart a planetary invasion right outside this room.

"Come on, we have work to do."

It was time to _really_ go off script.


	10. Chapter 10

"Are you sure you haven't gone too far?" Amy fidgetted a few steps away from him. She'd been acting distant since they'd left the Angel room.

"Usually people asking that question means I'm doing something right." Miles pulled his goggles - brand new, fabricated - off his eyes, watching the magic happen. "Why? Finally decided science is _awesome_?"

Amy didn't take the bait, unusually, looking away from him with a frown.

It had taken a few hours to temporarily suppress the local badnik population, an hour to suborn Robotnik's metallisation process with a few... "long term" tricks, thirty minutes to build enough boom to put a Little Planet sized dent in the Earth, and around ten minutes to figure out what colour he wanted his giant robot to be.

But right now? Amy was talking about something very different. To the tune of ten fully automated production lines of ring-powered combat robots, each armed with miniature laser cannons and an explosive dummy-ring launcher strong enough to put a dent in even the toughest badnik. Freezing jets of liquid nitrogen sprayed down on the machinery from above, the freezing temperatures keeping the overworked machinery from overheating as it pumped out new bots at a frightening rate.

Even better, he'd settled upon the perfect way to both thumb his metaphorical inventor-nose at Eggman while simultaneously working to avoid Sonic from walking into a timeline destroying warzone. It was so perfect he still had to grin when he looked at them.

Critters.

All of his robots were built to look like critters. Flickies, Pockies, the works. The exact same animals that Robotnik had been stuffing inside Badniks on Earth since his first debut as villainous world conqueror were now arrayed against him on Little Planet in robotic form. Better yet, he'd set up their AI so that the moment any of them in a zone spotted a blue hedgehog, the entire unit would set to "frolic mode", retreating from combat and engaging in a harmless random walk mode while they waited for the hedgehog to leave.

It was the perfect plan, even if he said so himself. The critterbots would tirelessly take on the bulk of Eggman's forces for him, replicating by cannibalising badnik scrap and ambient rings in the environment. Then, when Sonic came through, they would seamlessly - or at least seamlessly enough for Sonic's casual perusal - retreat and blend into the environment, preventing him from getting hit in any potential crossfire and allowing him to get his hero on fighting against the remaining badnik forces. Genius.

A trio of explosions sounded in the distance. Miles nodded as a note popped up on the wristpad of his newly constructed gauntlet.

"That was _Canary-01_." He stretched with a yawn. "Robotnik's hitting us with a combat team to reclaim the facility."

"Already?" Amy looked nervously in the direction of the sound.

"You, uh-" Miles rubbed the back of his head. "You don't seem to understand the principle of time travel?"

"... Oh. Right. Sorry."

"Anyway, it's fine, we need to get you home anyway."

"What? You're not going to stay here?"

"Nope. We already lost this place, remember? I'm more surprised we kept it this long."  
Amy tilted her head at him.

"If we didn't lose it, we wouldn't have had to fight our way through earlier in the future?"

Amy groaned. "Time travel is _annoying_."

"It sure is." Miles grinned. "Now let's go before whatever's shredding my canaries gets here."

Tapping a button on his wristpad Miles commanded the constructed critterbots to evacuate, scattering to other zones. His tails - _tail_ \- twitched as he turned towards the _Meka Teirusu_. A bright red and white chicken walker style mecha with stubby forearms and a cartoonish fox "face", a large scale iteration of a smaller design that had served him well in his youth, this one bristling with weapons, obvious and otherwise and plenty of storage in its rounded, "pudgy" frame.

Amy hadn't thought that was cool either. Girl had _terrible_ taste.

He sighed before _walking_ over, placing a gauntlet on the walker's smooth red undercarriage. A hatch irised open overhead, metal rungs telescoping down into his waiting palm.

"Ladies first?" His wristpad beeped again. "Like, now, right now, fast as you can."

Distant scaffolding collapsed. Another three Canary squads reported themselves as eliminated by the time Miles reached the cockpit, hands dropping onto the controls. He hadn't even heard them manage to fight back.

What the heck was destroying his canaries so fast?

… Oh.

Well in retrospect, _that_ was a foolish oversight on his part.

A blue blur streaked across the factory floor towards them, the setting sun glinting against metallic spikes as it leapt from girder to girder, scaling effortlessly towards their level.

"Sonic?" Amy pushed up over the console, face pressed against the windshield.

"Nope. Now sit down and hold onto something. I forgot to install seat belts." Miles firmly pushed her to one side as he settled down into the pilot seat.

Metal Sonic. The robotic _blue hedgehog_ that Doctor Robotnik had built here on Little Planet. That would kidnap Amy Rose, race Sonic, and rise up to become one of Sonic's greatest enemies.

Well... _that_ was a chicken and egg philosophical thought that was going to give Miles a real headache when he had time to think about it. But that wasn't now. Miles pulled his goggles down before laying his hands on the control panel, metal gauntlets beeping as they integrated with the _Meka Teirusu_. Moments later, the lenses of his goggles darkened, displaying an image from the external cameras in place of his normal vision as Miles finished integrating with the mecha, seeing what it saw, his movements syncing with its body.

Another Canary was torn apart, its flicky body self-destructing as the blue robot tore it in two. Metal Sonic paused, placing a contraption down on the platform beside it before stomping on a second fallen Canary with a metal shoe while a third flew helplessly, harmlessly, in circles around it.

The device beeped, displaying a holographic duplicate of the scene in faithful accuracy. Miles slapped his forehead, a motion replicated by the _Meka Teirusu's_ own stubby forearms.

That hologram meant that even when Metal Sonic was gone, his critterbots would remain docile and harmless thanks to the hedgehog trigger, leaving Robotnik's badniks to wipe them out with impunity. And… Sonic had already told him about them, whether that was a retroactive memory that just happened or some unimportant titbit he'd failed to think of before. Thanks to time travel, Doctor Robotnik had countered him completely before he'd even managed to finish his plan in the first place. Even with him trying to flip the script, nothing had changed at all.

And the implications of that couldn't be worse for him.

Metal Sonic turned, crushing the last two canaries before laying its black and crimson eyes on Miles. The _Meka Teirusu_ lowered its stance, twin gatling guns outstretched out as the metal hedgehog began its silent charge, bouncing off half built critters as it charged towards them.

Miles fired.

Right into the coolant sprayers above. Liquid nitrogen poured downwards just as Metal Sonic soared beneath, freezing it solid in a block of supercooled nitrogen ice.

Miles fired again, this time into the assembly line of critters at its feet. Explosions rocked the area as a massive chain reaction of exploding munitions and parts sent the wall behind it collapsing down and bringing the metal hedgehog down underneath it.

"You did it!" Amy pumped a fist inside a picture in picture in Miles' gogglevision. "Take _that_ , fake Sonic!"

"Yeah." Miles muttered, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Now let's get out of here before it gets back up again."

Helicopter blades erupting from its back, the _Meka Teirusu_ blasted away from the Wacky Workbench just before a FUTURE signpost nearby began to sparkle and glow.


	11. Chapter 11

"So… How are you doing?"

Miles glanced up from the waterfall. White vapour trailed from its surface from the repeated plasma bolts he'd been firing into it.

Amy squirmed under his gaze. She'd apparently managed to find herself another red hair band and a fresh outfit almost identical to the original, with blue instead of green. She hadn't been kidding about her limited wardrobe habits.

"Shouldn't you be at home?"

She'd barely said five words on the way back. Staring out of the cockpit at the land below with a glum expression on her face. Miles could guess what she'd been thinking.

"Mom's still making dinner, I snuck out."

"Brave." Miles raised his gauntlet, a bolt of energy lancing out into the waterfall with a hiss. "Try to stay awake this time."

Amy stuck her tongue out at him before settling down on the bank beside him, kicking at reeds with dirty trainers.

"I just wanted to say-"

"It's fine." Miles fired again, steam drifting from the waterfall as it swallowed his shot.

"What?"

"I said it's fine. You don't need to come with me anymore. I can try to network the critterbots I have left to scan for the rest of the time stones without you." He fired again.

"Huh? But-"

"I know. I almost got you killed today." Miles dipped the gauntlet in the water to cool it before raising it to shoot once more. "I suck, I let you down, I'm _sorry_. But don't worry, I'll still make sure you meet Son-"

Amy punched him in the arm. Miles' shot went wide, barely missing the _Meka Teirusu_ where it stood parked beside the pool. The purple rock face behind it glowed cherry red.

"For such a smart guy, you're pretty dumb, you know that?"

Miles rubbed his arm with a frown. "Well, yeah, I was just-"

"No, shut up." Amy raised her finger. "I almost _died_ today."

Miles flinched, but Amy shushed him again with a gesture.

"I got shot, _twice_. I fell in a hole. And a giant robot almost _ate me_. I was terrified. And- shut up or I swear I'll hit you again."

Miles sunk down, ears flat against his head.

"And then _you_ came. Right when I called you. Right when I _needed_ you, you came, and you saved me. And then when everything went dark, when I couldn't even breathe, you saved me _again_. You blew yourself up get me out of there without a scratch." Amy pulled her knees up to her chest, arms around her knees. "I don't even know _how_ you didn't… didn't… and then Robotnik got you, and there was blood _everywhere_. And all I could do was run after you and I just felt so _guilty_ and..."

Amy raised her fist once more. Miles tensed, but this time she only lightly pushed it into his shoulder.

"You were amazing. Thank you for being my hero, and... I'm sorry I couldn't say it sooner." Amy leaned over, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and pressing a furless cheek against his own before hopping to her feet, quickly turning away. "You're _still_ not cool though. I'll try and bring you some leftovers."

And then she was gone, leaving Miles alone, staring after her as she ran away.

"She seems nice."

"Huh?" Miles jerked around, his gauntlet outstretched towards the speaker. A dark figure hunched on top of the _Meka Teirusu_ , the light of the Earth overhead reflecting off a body of metallic purple.

"Good evening, my darling little dream." The figure raised a hand, wiggling clawed fingers in greeting, its voice familiar despite the mechanical buzz, detached, placid, almost sleepy. "I've missed you so."

Miles' jaw dropped, and he pushed himself to his feet, lowering his gauntlet as he stepped forward, almost falling in the water in his confusion.

"Doodle?!"

Miles frowned. His ally aboard the Death Egg, left behind centuries in the future, was a _human_ child. This metal figure was far too small to be her. A robot? With a mobian-style chassis? Some kind of remote connection? A Merl series robot?

The figure stepped forward, slipping off the _Meka Teirusu_ 's rounded back to land in the shadows before it, red and black eyes dimly glowing from the shadows.

"So you do remember me. That makes me _so_ happy. It's been so long, after all... For me at least."

"What are you doing here, Doodle?"

"Silly Miles." Twin metal tails tumbled from behind the figure as it stood, a long strip of tattered orange dangling from its fist. Light shone against a mouthless faceplate as it stepped into the light, a mechanical facsimile of his own face. "Of _course_ I came to help you. You're my _dream_ , after all. You're my responsibility."

Miles' frown deepened. Doodle had always been a little "erratic". A life growing up in Happy Days and a double dose of all the crazy genes in Eggman's X chromosome made that pretty much inevitable. But building a robot double of him was new. Like father, like daughter, he supposed.

"Well, thanks. Good to see you. How long has it been for you, Doodle?"

"And it's a good thing I _did_." Doodle ignored him, the Tailsbot raising its other clawed hand to a reveal a glittering purple gem in its silver palm. The time stone from the Wacky Workbench. "You've been too _distracted_."

"What do you mean?"

"But don't worry. While you've been flirting with that girl, _we've_ been busy."

Miles swallowed drily, stomach sinking as his brain connected the dots. "Doodle, that girl is just-"

"Don't worry, Miles. I understand. She's so _small_ and pretty after all. Of _course_ you'd get distracted. But don't worry."

A string of explosions punctuated her sentence. Miles snapped his head around to see orange stained clouds erupting from the village in the distance.

"We're here to help get you back on track."

"No!" Miles leapt into the air, tails - _tail_ spinning uselessly before he dropped back down to the ground, stumbling to fall to the earth.

And the Metal Tails ran past him, tails spinning as it effortlessly left him behind, laughing all the way.

With the ragged remnant of Miles' tail clutched in its hand.


	12. Chapter 12

Not a single building had been spared.

Fire spilled from every window, every doorway. Shattered glass and splintered wood spread scattered across the scorched earth, orange light competing with the blue Earthlight above to lend an otherworldly air to the scene of devastation.

Unstable rings lay scattered among fallen rubble, firelight glittering off their golden surfaces, slowly fading as their energy dissipated into the environment.

Miles ignored them, a field of blazing red enveloping his body as he raced from building to burning building, room to burning room, his goggled eyes scanning every corner, confirming what his sensors had already told him. Confirming what the silence screamed at him.

No signs of life.

Until finally there were no buildings left to check.

Except one.

Miles loitered at the threshold, rings now winking out of existence all around him as he stared grimly through a fallen wall at the once cosily decorated kitchen beyond.

No signs of life.

...But he had to know.

Had to be _sure_.

Miles stepped in through the hole, flames lapping harmlessly over his he dragged his feet against every instinct that demanded that he stop, as though looking would collapse the waveform of the universe and set in stone something he could not bear.

A table, set for dinner, smouldering under fallen timber.

A workbench, tools laid out around what was now ash.

Stairs, blackened boards collapsed halfway. Miles launched himself up, leaping from wall to wall to scramble onto the floor above. An inferno raged around his sanctuary as he waded through ash and flame, joists falling as he stepped over them, collapsing to the floor below as he raced gravity across the upper floors, smashing what doors remained in his haste.

Nothing.

Nobody at all.

The floor beneath Miles groaned its last. Miles leapt through a window, tumbling down to land heavily on the earth outside. The house crumbled behind him with a resounding boom of collapsing masonry.

"Did you find anything nice?" Metal Tails stood before him, hands clasped behind its back, his tail nowhere to be seen.

"Doodle." Miles glared up at the robot, face grim. "What did you _do_ to them?"

"What, did you think I would kill them?" A mechanical giggle tumbled from non-existent lips. "Miles, _really_. I would have thought you'd have a better opinion of our intelligence than _that_. It's not like I killed your _rabbit_ friend either. I saw what you did to Mama, after all."

"You-"

"Fine, yes, I _did_ try to shoot the hedgehog girl in the head a few times, but the way you saved her was _so_ romantic. We just couldn't _bear_ to do it again."

The robotic Tails made a heart with its robotic tails, making Miles' own heart ache to look at them.

"But you and I _both_ know that killing these people wouldn't be very helpful. You would spend half a day sulking about it, and when you finally dug deep and found your heroic resolve, which is _oh_ so fun to watch every time, by the way-" The robot fanned itself with a claw. "Then you would come up with a plan to try and murder me. Doesn't that sound about right?"

"It's a little meta, but... yeah." Miles shrugged.

On top of all those crazy genes, Doodle had _also_ received a double dose of all Robotnik's X-chromosomal genes relating to intelligence - well, at least a few were doubtless pleiotropic, the line between madness and genius was always a fuzzy one. More, she had spent _centuries_ watching him in Happy Days. If there was anyone who would understand how he thought, it was her.

"Exactly as _I_ said!" Metal hands clapped together. " _Much_ better for these people to be alive, right? That way _you_ don't get sidetracked, _we_ don't get killed, and you come and _visit_ me when you save them. Which is the least you could do after _abandoning_ me for so long, right?"

"And you'll keep them safe?"

"Hm? They should be _Happy_ enough with me. And don't _worry_ , little dream. I'm sure I'll take extra _special_ care of your friend. She's so _cute_ , after all. It would be a shame to _waste_ her."

Metal Tails extended a purple arm, dropping the time stone at his feet.

"Four left, my love. I don't know if I'll be quite so generous with the rest. We're still a little mad, after all." The metal Tails stroked a claw gently across his cheek, tilting its head to one side. "Case in point."

A flash of yellow burst in the corner of Miles' goggle-expanded vision. Muzzle flash. He launched backwards in a blur - his ability to flash step across short distances had never been dependent on his tails, at least.

The bullet hit a fraction of a second later, the sound of impact and the sound of the gunshot both reaching his ears at the same time.

But, yet again, he wasn't the target.

His mechanical mirror image rocked sideways, dark fluid flowing out of a sparking hole in its head, before it fell to its knees with a mechanical sigh. A moment later, blazing light shone from deep within the mech, smoke spilling from the seams of its armour before it detonated in a massive explosion, sending sharp spinning fragments flying in all directions until all that remained was a stain on the dirt.

Miles picked himself up off the ground with a grunt, hundreds of rings tumbling out of him as his body expelled multiple blackened shards. He walked forward, reabsorbing a few rings in passing before snagging the purple time stone from where it landed after the blast. The stone slipped into his hammerspace, purple joining red, green and pink.

Miles lifted his wristpad, tapping in commands to send his critterbots to scour the planet for any sign of the time stones, humans, or robotic foxes.

Given that Doodle had said "come visit her", she was likely still in the future, aboard the Death Egg. And with Mama destroyed, at least in that future timeline if not the version that would capture him in a few years, Doodle had all of Happy Days at her disposal. She could fit the entire population of Little Planet on board with room to spare within its rusty corridors.

But… She'd _also_ said it had been a long time. By his calculations, Miles had only spent a few months searching Little Planet for a surviving timepost. Did this mean he failed? Was he destined to die or give up, hence never never wiping her and Happy Days from the timeline as intended? Was this Doodle from a parallel dimension? And _four_ time stones? Did she want Robotnik's copy of the pink stone as well? He had more questions than answers at this point.

At least one thing was certain.

Miles glanced down at the blackened smear, the burnt, greasy smell tapping directly into ancient memories and roiling his stomach.

That girl was crazy for him.


	13. Chapter 13

Technology had come a long way over the years.

Miles paced at the bottom of a subterranean watercourse. A rippling bubble around his body kept him safe and dry as he walked, eyes more on his wrist than where he was going. A shoal of fish, white stripes identical down to the nearest micrometer, swam along beside him.

Metal Sonic hadn't set up a holo projector in this area yet. That or Sonic had already been through. Miles was banking on the former. The day they were all placed would be the last day that Sonic couldn't be here in the present/past.

In ancient times, mobians had been at the apex of technological development. Then the technological faction got locked into a time-dilated dimensional prison - the Twilight Cage. Then the other major faction offended an ancient being of primordial chaos.

A lobster-badnik launched from a darkened alcove, thrusting towards him like a torpedo. Miles didn't look up. His piscine escort tore it apart in a salvo of dummy rings, descending on its remnants like a shoal of piranhas until nothing remained. Miles walked between them with a frown on his face, still tapping at his wrist.

In the aftermath, most survivors eschewed all but the things too useful to abandon. In most places, like South Island, simple hand tools and wooden structures was most common. Only in the wilderness, far from their homes did they dare allow things like force shields and ring batteries.

There were a few exceptions. The Battle Kukku Empire had been a technological superpower until they picked a fight with one little fox from Cocoa. Other territories had bordered human nations. They adopted technology the same way they adopted clothing: Inconsistently, unnecessarily, and incompletely. Mobian societies across the world were a blend of the archaic, contemporary and futuristic. Sometimes all three at once.

Miles' pad beeped. It couldn't find the exact position of the time stone thanks to the solid stone all around them. He turned up a passage of stone, grabbing ancient pillars to pass by new steel pipework. The metallisation process had already started to take hold here, converting it for some nefarious purpose. Non-zero chance of that being a water park. Robotnik had his preferences.

When Robotnik started invading the only solution to Robotnik's technology had been even more technology. Lightning shields that gathered rings and let the user leap higher. Flame shields to shield them from fire and to let blast their way through obstacles in an emergency. Aqua shields to let them hide in the water, with enough extra "bounce" to get them out of the water when danger had passed. Everything oriented towards an emphasis of defence and mobility as regular mobians focused on escape and survival.

Robotnik escalated. Of course. Every invasion was bigger and more brutal than the last. But the mobian territories did the same. Wispons - weapons that allowed even baseline mobians to stand up against badniks - were invented. Technology once scarce became commonplace. Galvanised against a common foe, mobians as a whole began to climb back to the heights of their ancestral forebears.

This wasn't the case here and now on Little Planet. This industrial revolution was beginning on Earth right now - partly as a result of Miles' own efforts. But Little Planet's isolation had left its residents happy, safe, and helpless. And Sonic, when he came/would come, was stuck with the same inferior equipment he'd used when he first started fighting Robotnik's armies.

Miles glanced up as the path split in two, one route sloping upwards, the other downwards. He turned upwards, against the current. The idea of navigating these subaquatic tunnels without a shield seemed borderline suicidal. But Sonic, surrounded by crushing water when he couldn't even swim, had somehow managed it. He'd scoured the entire area for the badnik generator with nothing to go off except his own resolve. With Miles' arsenal, which included a selection of all three types of shield strapped to a bandolier on his chest, it felt like he was cheating in comparison.

Miles wasn't quite sure _how_ Sonic had managed though. There were a few bubbling air vents at the very lowest reaches of the zone, but these higher levels had none at all. There were even a few dragonfly badniks floating down here, drifting through a medium they weren't equipped to navigate. His fish destroyed them anyway. Robots, except those Miles had specifically flagged on their IFF, were all legitimate targets. Right up until they stopped being robots, then they gobbled up the remaining fragments like fish flakes.

At last, a translucent ceiling appeared at the end of the tunnel. Miles had found the surface once more. Some kind of waterfall pool? Even here, the troubled waters overhead were flowing back down the passage behind him. Miles leapt up, flailing fingertips brushing the edge of stone at the lip of the surface. His fishbots resumed normal operations as he left, grazing at metallising rock.

The first thing Miles noticed when he breached the surface of the pool was the sound of bitter sobbing. The second, a rush of water flowing around him. He clambered out onto the bank, metal gauntlets scraping against stone. The aqua shield repelled all but a thin film of water from the ground at its base as he stood against the tide.

There, hunched over into the far corner of the dim room, water flowing out from behind it, was a small yellow fox. Twin tails tipped with silver bobbed atop the rushing water.

"Doodle?" Miles called out over the rushing water. He pushed against the current to trudge towards this new Metal Tails.

There was no response. The Metal Tails kept sobbing, clawed hands raised to its face. Miles pushed forward, hand outstretched, gauntlet cannon humming as it charged.

"... Doodle?" He approached closer. The water was up to his knees, the bot's waist. The faint smell of… salt?

"-could you?" The sobbing eased, metal claws fell to the bot's lap beneath the surface.

"Huh?" Miles leaned forward. In one hand he could see a sparkle of yellow-

The Tailsbot turned, water cascading from black eyes over metal cheeks. "How _could_ you?!"

It lunged, clawed hand snapping around Miles' shoulder. His cannon shot blasted over its shoulder, scorching the stone behind.

Claws bit into his flesh, popping his shield. Water rushed over his feet as the Metal Tails burst forward, tails spinning to slam him up into the far wall.

"I _loved_ you!" It yelled, head close to his own. The yellow on half of its face had worn down, revealing dented the metal beneath. " _I_ loved you most of all!"

Batting aside his attempt to defend himself with a metal fist, Tails threw him back down to the floor. The rushing current dragged him back down towards the watery passage below.

"And now... Love is dead." Violently weeping once more, the bot landed atop him a moment later. The impact drove him below the surface of the water. Metal arms and tails wrapped around him as the robot's body shook, locking him in place.

Miles gritted his teeth, the tang of salt water on his lips as he struggled against the vice-like grip to no avail. He didn't even have leverage to sit up.

Four seconds. He had maybe thirty. Less with it sat on his chest like that.

Six. Miles finally worked his tail free enough to move. He probed at its hard metal chassis, searching for somewhere he could grab. Anything that might help him get to the surface and breathe. If he could breathe he could negotiate, or at least better try to wriggle loose. Twelve. Nothing. His lungs were starting to strain. Nothing nearby to latch onto either. Miles thrashed, trying to reorient with the momentum, but nothing. Fourteen. His gauntlet? He couldn't use the plasma blast underwater, but he _did_ have a dummy ring charge loaded. But he couldn't aim. His arm was pinned to his side by the weeping warbot. The blast fired straight down _might_ knock it loose, but it might bring the ceiling down instead. Could he get the gauntlet onto his tail?

Fifteen. His lungs were burning now. Wait. Shields. Could he reach his bandolier? Miles stretched, blindly slipping his tail up and around the Metal Tails to his chest, brushing across generator modules with its tip. Eighteen seconds. Hard to focus. He needed to _breathe_. He was going to drown in water shallow enough he could stick his tongue up into dry air.

There. Miles crushed a generator, releasing the energy from within.

Blazing fire exploded into existence around him, and vanished just as quickly. A flash of superheated water flowed away with the current. Miles grunted bubbles of irritation. Only aqua shields or the basic barrier shields functioned in water. The other two reacted with the liquid and shorted out.

Twenty-one seconds. Black spots were forming in his vision. Miles fumbled for another generator. He had a one in three chance of getting the oxygen he needed.

Twenty-four. He crushed it.

Electricity exploded out from him in a flash of blinding light. The Tails bot flew back, limbs spasming wildly. Miles lurched upright, pushing the machine back and away from him as he dragged air into his aching lungs.

The yellow fox stared at him, red and black eyes accusatory as it slumped like a puppet with its strings cut. Smoke billowed from its chassis.

"How could you _do_ that to me?"

The current dragged it down into the water. Miles winced as a series of muffled explosions bubbled up from the depths. They grew in intensity and frequency until all became still.

His fish were just following their programming after all.

Finally activating a fresh shield with shaking fingers, Miles pushed himself upright. He pulled water coated goggles off his eyes to step over to the edge and gaze down at the passage below.

The glittering time stone hung suspended in pink tinged water beside a shattered wall. A few colourful fish swam together, nibbling at scraps of material floating around them. They were the only survivors of the explosions and his electrical discharge.

Shaking his head, Miles turned to the wall behind where the Metal Tails had knelt. Brackish water flowed through a crack stained with metallic yellow paint. How long had it been smashing its head into the wall?

"Whatever I did… I'm sorry."

His voice went unanswered over the rush of water.

Miles sighed, firing a ring down into the shattered wall as he let the water push him over the edge. The time stone flowed into his hammerspace as he landed on top of it.

Two stones left.

He turned away, unease gnawing in his stomach as he walked away. A minute later, the dummy ring detonated. The passage collapsed behind him, sealing the rush of water behind tons of rubble.

A suitable burial for the strange and discomfiting scene he had just witnessed.

Miles walked on, eyes on his wristpad as he went.


	14. Chapter 14

The _Meka Teirusu_ 's proximity alarm chimed, awakening Miles from his cat nap. Or fox nap? These stolen periods of sleep while the _Meka_ waddled from zone to zone were all he'd had since the day before yesterday. He didn't dare sleep longer. Despite Doodle's assurances he had no great faith that Amy - and the villagers - would remain safe in her clutches forever. Or even for long. She certainly wasn't giving a great impression of mental stability so far.

Not that he wasn't used to it. His constant all nighters in the workshop had never lent themselves to a healthy sleep schedule at the best of times. And back when he'd been chasing Sonic around fighting Robotnik all the time? He'd sleep so rarely he'd spend the whole day yawning. At least he didn't have to worry about stunting his growth. He never grew anyway.

Miles tapped his goggles with a yawn, calling up images of the outside world once more. Green swampland stretched out behind him, slime clinging to the legs of the _Meka_ as it dragged through the mulch to clamber up to relatively stable ground. High above him on a cliff choked with vines and overgrown with weeds yawned the mouth of a vast natural cavern. Miles stared up at it with a sigh, his tail twitching with an ache deeper than physical.

He hit a button. The top of the _Meka Teirusu_ 's head sprung open, a spring launcher built into his seat sending him hurtling upwards. At the apex of his launch, he struck a pose with one arm outstretched and clicked his heels together. A burst of compressed air burst out from his shoes, sending him jetting forward into the cave mouth.

When he'd had his tails, this anklet design had helped him to save an entire city from a nuclear warhead. They'd even let him outspeed Sonic over short distances, which was part of the reason he stopped using them in the first place. A hero should never be outshone by their shadow. No risk of that now, of course. He was using every technological trick he'd been able to reasonably manufacture in the limited time he had, but he was still struggling just to get around.

No time for self pity. Miles moved on ahead, blasting a snail badnik into pieces as he moved through the tunnels and out the other side into daylight once more. Another open section of swamp stretched below him, slime coated rock extending down to the muck, crystalline shards peeping out from beneath the goo here and there in a tangle of overgrown plants.

Miles yawned again, rubbing his cheek as he glanced around for any threats. Quartz Quadrant, one day soon to become a mining operation that would supply the bulk of the materials Wacky Workbench would consume - once it got up and running. According to his readings, the entire zone was full of small rock formations linked by a honeycomb of caves like this one. And a time stone in the area meant there was probably another robot in one of them waiting for him.

Well... another robot _him_. Miles shot a scorpion badnik to pieces, scoping around to see if any of his critter bots were active. He encountered robots pretty much _everywhere,_ but-

Miles foot slipped on a patch of goo, sending him falling onto his tailside. The slick slime smothered surface of the slope gave no resistance, and he slid downwards, barely ducking beneath a FUTURE sign as he flailed past on his way down into the swamp below. The _last_ thing he needed was to travel to the future while he was busy falling on his butt. With his luck he'd flash forward into one of Robotnik's boss machines again.

Miles tucked down, converting his slide into a roll before dropping down into some bushes with something between a dry crunch and a wet splut.

Well at least nobody saw that. Miles wiped mud off his goggles with the fur of his wrist, flicking it off with a snap of his arm. Couldn't even walk right anymore. Miles crawled out of the bushes, grumbling as he snapped twigs out his fur. His wristpad beeped. Miles glanced at it, then hurled himself straight back into the bush.

Shortly after he did, a foot squelched down in front of his hiding place, blue spines jutting from a sleek metal chassis.

Metal Sonic.

Miles held his breath, hunching tight and low in the undergrowth.

He would normally be pretty sure of his chances. Metal was a foe he'd helped take on a few times in far more menacing forms. At this point in the timeline it was less advanced and less powerful than he'd already faced, and, from the looks of the exposed circuitry across its back, currently damaged. From what, he wasn't certain.

But in realistic terms, he was _also_ less powerful, alone, and Metal Sonic had its own date with destiny already. _Three_ dates with destiny, in fact. It wasn't even supposed to be damaged right now. This was a deterministic "Let Sonic handle it" issue if ever there was one. He'd do better to focus his resources on getting the last two time stones from this period, then travelling forward to try and pick up the duplicate pink from Robotnik. There'd be plenty of fighting to do there.

The Sonicbot performed a long sweep of the area, taking a long, hard look at the bushes Miles was hid behind before continuing on. Miles let out a soft sigh of relief, waiting an extra minute in case the roboclone doubled back.

Did it detect him?

If it did, it may not have recognised him as a target. Metal was primarily oriented towards opposing and antagonising Sonic and suppressing Miles' Critterbots. The native population were largely incidental to those directives unless they happened to be cute, pink and spiky. Hm… Hopefully the _Meka Teirusu_ would also fall into that category if it came across it.

Miles checked his wristpad once more before climbing out of the bush and jogging on ahead. With no blue hedgehogs around, and Miles' remaining critterbots likely hiding in dormant mode somewhere in the area, Metal Sonic would _probably_ move on to another zone to continue its task of expanding Eggman's hologram network, but no harm in being careful.

Miles slipped into another cave, here the dull green slime on the walls showed deep black scorch marks. Miles stared at them, tapping his lips with a finger. Not the firing patterns he'd programmed into his critterbots. Not the right kind of laser, either. What had Metal Sonic been up to? Was it fighting against insurgents? Some third party?

His wrist pad beeped again. Miles glanced at it, eyebrows raising as he read the message it held.

The time stone had disappeared.


	15. Chapter 15

Well this wasn't good.

Miles tapped at his pad with a frown, trying to establish a scan with the zone's remaining critters and failing. Not enough coverage to conduct a proper sweep, thanks to Metal's recent purge.

…Well, he _could_ wait. According to his reports, badniks and critters had actually formed something of a dysfunctional predator/prey equilibrium within Robotnik's territory.

The badnik population constantly increasing thanks to the bot creator. Those badniks would kill the critters, which were helpless so long as one member of the entire population could see the hologram. But eventually the critterbots would reach a critical point - once no critter could see the hologram they would revert to normal behaviour, taking out badniks and using their materials to replenish their numbers, at which point they would have enough members to reliably see the hologram, allowing the badnik population to reassert itself and start the cycle anew.

If Miles had achieved two thing for Sonic, it was ensuring that he wouldn't be facing a massive army when he got here, and he wouldn't have to worry about cleanup when he left. Miles knew how much he hated paying attention to little details like that.

When Sonic destroyed the bot generator the critterbots would eventually wipe out the remaining badniks across the zone, even if they did so with a tiny population remaining. If Sonic destroyed the hologram generator then the critter population would engage in a full scale war, hopefully finishing the job after a few centuries or at least crippling the badnik army in the end. And even if Sonic ended up travelling to a future where neither event had occurred, the constant harassment from the critters would ensure that he wasn't just surrounded _en masse_ the moment he arrived.

Miles finished his calculations and shook his head. It would take around seventeen hours thirty six minutes and ten seconds for the critterbots to reach sufficient density to perform another scan. Far too long. He'd have to move to the place it was last detected. Hopefully it would be something obvious like getting transported into the future. Doodle was certainly intelligent enough to exploit the holes in his detection grid if she was aware of them.

Hm. Did Metal Sonic have something to do with it? Miles glanced at the walls as he continued deeper into the zone. Scorch marks again, but narrow. A laser weapon? Metal had a move where it charged enveloped with an energy field, nothing this precise… Doodle? Had Doodle fought against it? He assumed that at least part of her force was capable of using a sniper rifle, and if they were more roboclones of himself… Could Eggman's own forces be fighting against hers?

If so, the enemy of his enemy had been a massive inconvenience on this occasion. Miles glanced up, spotting a FUTURE timepost on a ledge overhead, a pair of arachnid badniks posted nearby. Probably worth doubling back to that. Maybe he could get higher up from the other side? This cave was where the signal had been, after all.

Miles walked into a lower entrance, launching a dummy ring between two spiked metal caterpillars. They had barely time to glance at him before they too became a scorch mark on the floor.

Not much to go on here. Miles covered his nose to the stench of burnt compost as he glanced around the cavern. Part of the wall had caved in around a massive impact site that might have been Metal Sonic charging into it. A few marks where his mystery combatant had missed - including a gap in the mark on the wall where they clearly _hadn't_ missed. Metal had doubled around… here. Another impact crater, almost concealed already from greenery flowing back down to cover it. And… Miles glanced down at a spiralling pattern of black at his feet, then up into the dark reaches of the cave above as signs of combat continued up the walls.

And... there's where the two broke off the engagement. Miles leapt, jet anklets propelling him into the wall beside a deep indentation. The point when the beams - he glanced from the new perspective to make sure - yep, this was the last point where the shooter had fired. Dangling from the rock, Miles touched his gauntlet against the rough edges where blue paint had scraped off from the collision with the wall…

And then they fell.

Miles did too, landing on his feet beside the opening to another tunnel. This was where Metal had either cut its losses - unlikely given its temperament - been evaded - unlikely given its speed - or... thought it had already won.

Miles glanced up the passageway. It sloped upwards. Metal had left in the opposite direction, the shooter had gone up the passage. Miles followed the trail, green slime stained brown where they'd stumbled against the wall, squinting as he tried to make out the markings in the dark.

It was common for people, primarily humans, to assume that mobians held animalistic traits akin to the animals they were named for.

It was a fair enough assumption, and features did show up common between the two now and then, but generally speaking it wasn't the case. Mobians were an evolutionary branch from the same common ancestor as critters, not terran animals. Their visual similarities to Earth animals was a case of convergent evolution, not shared ancestry.

This meant he couldn't hear a mouse sneeze at a hundred feet. He didn't have a particularly great sense of smell - or _stink glands_ for that matter. "Insect" mobians had blood, not lymph, "reptiles" were warm blooded, and, mutations and rare species aside, mobians as a genus had no _tapetum lucidium_ and vertical pupil slits, so his night vision wasn't much different from a mobian squirrel's.

What Miles _did_ have, on the other hand, was a flashlight. He rolled his eyes as he stretched two fingers and a thumb towards the wall. It was easy to forget the simple things sometimes. A beam of white light shone from his fingertips to illuminate his way through the passageway. Following a split in the path upwards, Mile emerged], finally, at the time plate he'd seen before from below. A brown smear stained the sign's black and gold surface.

That confirmed it. The shooter had escaped to the present/future. Shooting the nearby badniks as an afterthought, Miles placed his own hand onto the sign, the now familiar temporal static ruffling through his fur.

…Huh. It just occurred to him that he could have travelled to the present and used the more stable critter population there to scan for the new location. Four dimensional thinking was still weird getting used to.

Jetting from wall to wall, Miles climbed until he touched the ceiling, then kicked off, cycling his jets as often as possible to accelerate down to the floor until, with a flash, he appeared once more, slamming heavily into a ground that was now hard and metallic rather than soft and squishy. Above him artificial floors barred the route he'd just come down, the underside of a badnik visible through holes in the metal mesh as it patrolled above.

Miles straightened, rubbing the back of his neck with a frown. Just because he could survive pretty much any fall didn't mean it didn't _hurt_ when he landed. At least they hadn't built a spike pit here or something. That would have been an unpleasant landing, rings or no rings.

Raising his pad, Miles tapped the screen a few times, metal gauntlet clicking lightly against glass as he worked.

Just as he thought. There weren't _many_ critters around, but enough to pick up the time stone nearby. Miles hopped to his feet, stretching his legs and tails - _tail_. Not that he could use his tail to run anymore. Whatever. He started forward, into the same cave he'd just came out of moments before/a long time ago.

What a difference present/future made. Gone was greenery, slime and growth, and gone was a good deal of the walls as well. Whirring machinery crushed crystals into component ready sizes, giant crystalline outcrops jutting exposed from the walls and floor, irregular facets carved into them by the machinery that carved them from the rock.

Miles walked on, threading between grinding metal and sparking stone to move deeper into the cave. A conveyor belt whirred tirelessly before him, moving the way he wanted to go, so he climbed aboard, walking along with it until he saw a tunnel which, if it didn't contain the time stone and his mystery combatant presumably contained some priceless artefact he could use to trade for them. Glowing red laser beams flickered through floating crystal dust, sending distorted red-shifted rainbows sparkling off in all directions as they moved, rotating through space in an endless spirals.

An entire corridor filled with massive crystals and spikes. A brown smear marked the closest crystal, the laser beam striking its surface every fraction of a second to refract into a dozen new beams, some of which hit other crystals, repeating the refraction time after time until the entire corridor was a lethal moving spider web of laser beams and stabby death. Also a literal spider badnik, though it seemed as pinned down at the far end of the corridor as he was here.

"Doodle. Can you turn off the lasers now?" Miles pricked his ears listening for a response. He was now walking backwards on the conveyor to avoid getting lethally transported. "Please?"

...No response.

Meh, worth a shot. Miles gazed at the laser web with his finger on his chip. He could jump between the beams, but doing so would drop him onto the spikes. If he wanted to avoid the spikes, he'd have to pass through the worst of the beams…

Well, he was going to have to cut the knot. There was no water nearby or he could disrupt the laser's wavelength with the steam. He could notionally achieve the same with dust, but he didn't really have time to achieve sufficient thermal blooming to disrupt the network for good while he was on the conveyor belt. The spikes were solid metal, hard to break. But shattering the crystals at range was possible? But... calculating the resulting path of the lasers refracting through the new smaller crystals was unfeasible without taking some time to sit down and think about where to put the dummy ring...

Alright.

Miles jumped, firing his plasma cannon. The spider badnik exploded into a cloud of smoke and metal parts, momentarily obscuring the source of the laser. For a brief moment, the laser web disappeared. He jetted over the spikes, dropping into a dive and sliding along the floor as the laser burned through the smoke, once more covering the area in deadly light. Miles glanced around. Apparently in the blind spot below the conveyor he'd leapt from was a timepost, PAST. Useless to him now, ignore. Above? A few conveyors, no way to reach them. Could his plasma disrupt the laser without destroying a combustible? Miles fired into the next crystal barring his path. The soot didn't last long enough to even noticeably interrupt the web.

Hm… But now he was down here on solid ground and at least nominal safety there were things he could do that he couldn't before. Twisting the cuff of his glove, Miles slipped his hand up through a gap in the laser web, firing his dummy ring up at the rock ceiling of the passage. It detonated on impact, sending a shower of dust and rubble tumbling down towards him.

Miles was already in position, holding himself in place while spinning his legs at top speed, the beginning of a spin dash. Rubble falling down towards him was pulverised into dust, debris on the floor was kicked up by the growing turbulence. By the time Miles had built up enough momentum the air was thick and unpleasant with filth, just the way he needed it to be.

He let go, falling into a spin as he launched _through_ the red energy beams. A faint smell of burning fur hit his nostrils as he passed them, but not enough to cause any real harm. Again, he leapt up, jetting forward over more spikes as he smashed a fire shield module. Blazing energy crackling up around him before he used the shield's mobility module to launch himself once more, this time as a burning fireball to land where the spider badnik had been, a red and gold flower sprouting from its remains.

Okay, if he was a laser, the angle he'd need to fire from to produce this exact spread of lasers would be… Miles pointed from crystal to crystal, lips moving in silent calculation as he tried to determine which of the red beams was the point of origin…

There, up on the conveyors above. Miles leapt upwards, jets boosting him up to grab the side of the conveyor. He slowly poked his head over the top, wary…

A stained laser cannon, glowing red from being fired continuously for so long, sat atop the conveyor, spinning in circles as it fired down into the corridor.

No sign of the shooter. Miles reached over to the burning hot laser and shut it down. Heat rippled across his fire shield as its struggling power supply gave up the battle and exploded in a shower of sparks. Okay, so where was its owner-

Of course. The timepost. Mile launched himself off the conveyor just in time to see a metallic blue fox streaking down the corridor towards him. He snapped his hand out to grapple its damaged chassis as it passed before a flash of light transported him back to a considerably safer, if dirtier, version of the death corridor, his injured robotic clone held tightly in his grasp.

"Hello, Doodle."

The blue Tails sagged, its metallic chassis stained heavily by dust, slime and coolant, cracked and sparking where the Metal Sonic had presumably smashed into it.

"I don't want to die." A small, frightened voice crackled over a malfunctioning voice box, weary and pained. The Metal Tails pulled weakly against his grip, lacking any of the desperate strength its yellow counterpart had possessed.

"I just want the stones, Doodle. I need to come visit you... remember?"

"How could I stop you?" A blue stone tumbled from the robot's grip, bouncing to the floor. "Did my love and sorrow mean anything at all?"

The robot stopped supporting its weight, almost pulling Miles over before he caught himself, allowing it to lower itself to the floor, claw clutched to its caved in chestplate.

"I fear you, little dream." The blue robot stared past him, black and red eyes unfocused. "And... I fear me. I am so angry for what you did. Anger is explosive, and I am too."

"What _happened_ , Doodle?" Miles knelt down beside the machine as it continued to fall, his hand under its head as he lowered it gently down to the floor. "What did I do to you? How can I _fix_ it?"

"Please don't kill me. Please don't hate me. Please… stop..."

Blinding light shone from the cracks of its metal shell. Foul smelling smoke briefly assaulted Miles' nostrils before the robot detonated in his arms, his shield failing under the barrage of shrapnel.

"Well, _that_ was certainly brave of me."

"Huh?" Miles looked up in surprise. A metallic orange fox sat on the rocks above him, kicking its feet as it stared down at him.

"Hello, my love. We have something to talk about, you and I."


	16. Chapter 16

How many of these metal clones _were_ there? Blue, purple, yellow, all colour coordinated to match the time stones they held. All radically different to one another in temperament and behaviour.

And now an orange variant sat above him, black and red eyes staring down at him unblinking, swinging its legs idly as it watched him.

"Aren't you going to pick that up?" The Tailsbot flicked a claw at the blue time stone glittering on the floor beside Miles. "I died keeping it safe for you, after all."

Miles didn't look down, slapping his tail onto the blue gem while keeping his eyes locked on the robot above him.

"How cautious. I would be proud."

Pink, red and green he found himself. Purple, yellow, and now blue. Six of the seven.

"Do you have a stone?"

"Not today I don't." The Tails shrugged. "I'm just here to make sure you got the message?"

"Message?" Miles frowned.

"Didn't I just try to tell you?" The Tails pointed a claw at the stain that was all that remained of its blue counterpart. "When anger killed love, I waited for you here. Because we were afraid you would hate me if anger won." Doodle stood, tails twirling over one another. "But I was too blue, it seems. A case of mistaken identity. So sad. I died begging you to stop me."

There it was again, even this comparatively lucid version maintained that odd way of speaking. Miles' frown deepened.

"You're Doodle."

"Hm? Of course I am, silly dream." Doodle put a claw on its featureless metal cheek. "Haven't you been paying attention?"

"No… You're... _all_ Doodle. She- you copied her mind to all of you. Each one of you is its own instance of Doodle."

"For a given value of Doodle, at least." Doodle laughed, staring off at the ceiling. "Why don't you give yourself a minute? I think we can spare that much."

"Huh?" Miles shook his head. He had to think. What had the Doodles said?

They were here to help him. Purple - Love? - had given him the purple stone, but said that the others were still mad and wouldn't necessarily cooperate. Anger had shot her, making Anger the one likely to have tried shooting Amy in the desert - before the Doodles had reached a consensus to capture her instead. To "motivate" him. Yellow - Sorrow - had blamed him for Love's death. Blue - Fear - was afraid of Anger, and according to Orange - probably _not_ Anger - wanted him to stop Anger… Because Anger was... explosive and was going to do something terrible.

"The Stardust Speedway."

The site of Sonic's destined race against Metal Sonic, the location of the final time stone in past/present. The place where Amy would be held, and rescued… And in every iteration of every time period, the zone that featured the largest population centre on all of Little Planet.

"Well _done_ , Miles." Metal hands clapped together. "I will be waiting there, wreathed in righteous anger. Perhaps I will try to kill you, perhaps I cannot bear to. Perhaps I just want to _hurt_ you the way you hurt _me_."

"What did I _do_ to you, Doodle? How can I fix this?"

"I can't tell you that, my darling little dream." Doodle turned, tails beginning to spin as it settled into a crouch. "You haven't done it yet, after all. But you should find answers soon. Perhaps when you find _my_ stone? But hurry all the same. There is no time. Such irony."

With a crack of the sound barrier breaking, Doodle blasted off down the corridor. Miles sighed as he tapped commands into his wristpad, summoning the _Meka Terisu_.

Wait. If Orange had a stone, and Anger has a stone in the Stardust Speedway… Assuming the colour convention held out, Anger was _pink_? Odd choice. At least he wouldn't have to face off against Robotnik again.

Miles turned and headed towards the nearest exit.

* * *

While he'd never been to Little Planet before, Miles _had_ visited the Stardust Speedway before. Or, at least, might have done? It was an unholy fusion of time travel and a reality warping rock. He had no idea if it had actually happened, or how much "was real" versus a phantom from Robotnik's twisted mind.

Looked pretty similar though. The _Meka Teirusu_ landed heavily onto a natural highway formed from vines tangled together atop a foundation of classical architecture. According to his screen, the large building in the distance ahead - some kind of old temple, perhaps? - housed the time stone. Judging from the energy readings he was getting from the _Meka_ 's sensors they contained something else too.

"Disengage Flight Mode."

Rotors retracted from the top of the _Meka_ , folding back inside its chubby torso. Arms and legs re-emerged from its sides, stomping on the ground as it resumed its normal chickenwalker shape.

"Engage sprint mode." Technically he didn't _have_ to say the words. A button press was all it took, but he'd spent so much time with passengers it had become something of a habit. Surprisingly few people enjoyed the vehicle they were in to undergo rapid spontaneous structural changes in transit.

The rotors sprung out once more, this time from the back of the _Meka_. Hard wheels sprung from its feet as the body crouched lower to the earth. Like the original remote robot, he'd based this one on himself - or what he used to be. The rotor started to spin as the pudgy red mech's engines started to throb below him. Another unnecessary feature that Miles included for quality of life. Where's the satisfaction revving a _silent_ engine?

"Red ones go faster." Miles pulled the throttle. The _Meka_ 's wheels squealed against the roadway before it blasted off, slamming past a FUTURE sign as it went.

Miles ignored it. The _Meka_ couldn't quite move fast enough to trigger a warp. It _could_ however, ignore a lot of things that would slow _him_ down on foot. Twin cannons fired at two firefly badniks at at once, tearing them into critter food as he hurtled beneath them.

A metallic clang rung through the _Meka_ , a damage report showing minor hull distortion as a sniper round bounced off its heavy plating.

A _lot_ of things. Miles smiled grimly, lowering the mech's head to make its cockpit a harder target as it launched across a ramp to land heavily on the other side of a yawning chasm. He needed to keep to the upper levels of the speedway. The lower parts were littered with tunnels big enough for a mobian, but not a mecha. Another round bounced off the hull.

Well, there was one good thing Robotnik had achieved at least. With the speedway being thoroughly infested with badniks, it was abandoned, the city's occupants either fleeing the area or sheltering in place to see if someone else would deal with the problem for them. Miles shuddered to think what might happen with a crowded thoroughfare and a snipe-happy killbot.

Or just him and the _Meka Teirusu_. Miles ramped up another overgrown ledge and landed into a bed of spikes with a shriek of shorn metal. Spikes tumbled off the speedway to the ground below.

Well that couldn't have been good for the paint.

Another shot. This one punctured the cockpit, leaving a hole just above Miles' ear. He dropped down into the well of his seat, relying on the images from his goggles to navigate. Halfway there. Shattered cockpit aside, the _Meka_ wasn't doing too bad. The badniks and Anger couldn't do much to its heavy armour, and the worst threats he could simply avoid.

Miles swept around a large spiky metal sphere, punting a rolling armadillo - wait, insect theme, _armadillidae_ \- badnik like a football as he passed. To its credit, the badnik remained intact as it bounced off a wall, his cannons ricocheting off its tough shell.

Heh. Imitation was the sincerest form of flattery.

Another shot. An alert sounded on Miles' dashboard as the _Meka_ 's rotor sheared off.

"Clever girl." Miles grimaced at the parallel, recalling the lopsided propeller as the _Meka_ lost speed, eventually braking to a halt. Without its rotors there was no way the mech could readily cross the gaps between roadways, let alone do so quickly enough to stop whatever was causing the increasingly alarming energy readings before they reached critical levels.

A rolling bug slammed into the _Meka_ 's leg once more. Miles looked down at it through exterior cameras, rubbing his chin. With a flip of a metal foot, he kicked it onto its back, stomping on its unprotected underside to pin it in place.

Well, that was _two_ good things for Doctor Robotnik today.

The _Meka Teirusu_ crouched down over the badnik as Miles slipped out from its undercarriage, pulling his beam knife from a glove as he got to work.


	17. Chapter 17

Miles had to admit he was feeling pretty darn Mighty right now.

Bright green might not be the most inconspicuous colour, but with the thick metal plates armouring his head and body he would be able to maintain decent speed on foot without having to stick to cover. He'd still be restricted to the lower tunnels in places though, without his tail he couldn't make the jumps between the upper levels either. Again, the parallel with his damaged mecha made him uncomfortable.

"Stay safe." Miles banged the _Meka Teirusu_ with a metal gauntlet, shifting to settle the weight of the heavy shell better around his body. His tail was coiled up inside both to protect it and to hold the shell tight against his back.

Miles' watch beeped. He glanced at it with a frown.

Four minutes to run across half a zone, give or take a few seconds.

Seemed doable.

Miles pulled his goggles down, stretching his limbs before dropping into a sprinter's crouch. Once he broke from the cover of his mech, Angry!Doodle was going to be gunning for him with everything she had. Shield generator?... No. Getting hit with a bullet would pop it whether it hit his armour or not.

"Here goes nothing."

Miles broke out running, feeling heavy and ungainly with the thick metal weighing him down, but no slower for it, at least. He was already far too slow already. The same breath as he launched from cover a bullet smashed into the rim of his shell, the deafening impact leaving him disoriented.

Keep running. Accelerate.

Strange as it may seem for someone that spent quite so much time moving as he did, but Miles didn't actually train his legs that much. Much in the same way a normal person wouldn't train to run on their hands, or on all fours, it simply wasn't a practical use of his time. He could still shift quickly along short distances with a flash step, but for any long distance running he would invariably switch to using his tails, which were more energy efficient, suffered less friction, and had a greater top speed, despite their slower acceleration.

And, because Miles skipped leg day as a matter of course, he was now paying the price. Falling short of a jump he tumbled down to a lower level. Miles coiled into a metal ball to bounce off a set of spikes, bending them over with the impact. Another bullet slammed into his coiled self, almost sending him spinning off the side of the speedway before he jetted back up, gloves leaving deep grooves in the soft plant matter as he clawed his way back onto the platform.

Three minutes. The temple loomed in the distance. He could still-

A bullet smashed into his eyeball, exploding in a shower of rings. Miles clutched his eye with a scream, tearing the shattered goggles away before the crumpled glass could lacerate his eyeball. He lunged forward, tears streaming down his face, blindly flailing for and missing his tumbling rings as he went. No depth perception. Could still make it.

So much for not wanting him dead?

There, a tunnel upward. Too narrow to run, he'd have to roll through. At least it would give him a moment's cover. He slipped to the side, a bullet kicked up a spray of green as it missed him. Caught the muzzle flash that time. _Now_.

Miles tucked into a ball, dropping down a loop de loop before curving up and out of the tunnel with a pop. He jetted down to the floor to resume running faster, his leg muscles burning from the strain. He regretted not making a pair of jet skates now. He was used to skimming across surfaces, so if Shadow the Hedgehog could use a pair to keep pace with Sonic then _he_ have avoided this much trouble now.

Two minutes. Keep pushing. He leapt between a trio of fireflies, electricity crackling from their transparent glass abdomens. One smashed against his back. Hadn't intended that. Oh well. Could barely see. Building _looked_ close? _Faster._

A bullet finally pierced through Miles' battered shell, blowing a chunk of flesh and fur out of his shoulder. He bit down on a yelp. Don't stop. He was there. Jumping from wall to highway and back again, Miles rammed down onto a spring and soared, smashing into the building through a window. Well furnished, fancy. Covered in blood now. Up or down? He checked his pad. Up.

Compared to a mad dash through the zone the climb was far, far shorter, but also far, far more uphill. How tall _was_ this place? He was already _so_ tired. His arm was getting numb. Harder to move it now. Couldn't check for blood. He fired his plasma cannon out a window aimlessly. Another floor, another landing. Nice statues. Little Planet really did have some nice artwork. Architecture was impressive too. Like a cross between gothic and classical? He fired again, blackening stone. Again.

That should do it.

Miles grabbed his shoulder. His burning hot gauntlet sizzled against his wound. He whimpered, eyes swimming, as smoke assaulted his nose. Would he ever forget the trauma of that foul smell?

One minute. An alarm beeped on his wristpad. He slapped it into silence, still forcing trembling legs to keep climbing…

There.

Miles dodged to the side. A bullet shattered the fresco behind him.

"Hello, _Miles_." A cyan blue fox punched him in the face with a claw, slamming him crashing back into the wall. "About _time_ you showed up."

"Hello, Doodle." Miles rubbed his cheek with a still warm hand. "Did you have something to say to me?"

Behind the blank faced Tails was a beeping sphere, a cold blue light emanating from within a shell of metal and glass. Miles didn't have to check his readings to guess where the time stone was. A chronobomb would tear local time to pieces. People would age at different rates across their bodies, an agonising process as they ripped themselves to shreds with their own heartbeat.

"I don't suppose 'sit back and enjoy the show' would be what you were hoping for?" Doodle snorted. "You look ridiculous by the way."

"I would have thought you'd like it." Miles staggered forward on legs that felt like rubber. "Another name for these things is Doodle Bug, after all."

"Don't try to be cute." Doodle raised the rifle - a gun longer than Miles was tall, and constructed in that same icy blue metal colour - firing another shot in an instant.

Miles slipped around it just as quickly.

"But I _am_ cute though?" Miles grinned, blinking away tears. His shoulder throbbed. "And that only worked before because I was distracted."

And _crippled_.

"Shut up. You can't talk your way out. You _deserve_ this for what you did." Doodle chambered another round.

Thirty seconds.

"You're right." Miles nodded.

"Damn right I- huh?"

"You're totally right. I'm sorry." Miles spread his arms wide. "Let's find a different way to do it. Together."

"You're just-" Doodle stopped mid sentence, firing a bullet into Miles' hurtling green shell before launching out of the way.

But Miles wasn't in it. Slipping out from behind the shell, he predicted the dodge and crashed into his duplicate, wrapping arms and tail around arms and tails.

"Sh sh sh. I'm sorry." Twenty seconds. "I really am." Miles stroked metal gauntlet over metal exoskeleton. "It's okay."

Doodle's body, rigid at first, slumped into his embrace.

"I'm so, so sorry." Miles sighed, releasing his grip. "Especially after you asked me not to."

Doodle dropped to the floor. Miles, the blade of his beam knife still crackling, stepped over the body as it began to glow blinding white from within the metal exterior.

Ten seconds. His watch began chiming the seconds. The sphere began to vibrate with energy.

People couldn't really help what they were, after all. Strolling over, he sliced a hole in the side of the chrono bomb.

He was still a baby-faced killer to the very end.

Three seconds.

Punching his hand into the bomb, Miles' brushed his fingertips across the time stone within.

As Doodles' body exploded behind him, the bomb before him powered down. Shrapnel shredded his back, one punching a hole in his ear. The room plunged into darkness as the light above shattered, the dim lights of the speedway outside shining through a large ornate window.  
Miles slumped to his knees, blinking away tears from his eyes as he clutched the smooth sphere in front of him.

"Hello, Doodle."

"How did you know I was here?" The orange fox peeked around a marble column, black and red eyes glowing in the dim light.

"How else would you stop it if I failed?" Miles turned to face his copy, head resting against metal as he stared, exhausted mentally and physically.

"Very clever, little dream." Metal claws clapped together in applause.

Miles grunted. He understood perfectly, of course. The hero could never be outshone by their shadow, but the shadow was _always_ there, ready to move when the hero couldn't. Ready to do the things that the hero couldn't. Save the girl, disarm the doomsday device, solve the _problems_ so the hero could save the day. So they could keep on being a hero.

The only problem was Doodle's terrible choice of hero.

"You may as well take off your helmet." Miles stood with a sigh, tilting his head to allow the blood to drain from his ear. "We've got a lot to talk about."


	18. Chapter 18

"So you already knew?" If surprise couldn't register on the blank metal face of Doodle's face, it certainly did in her voice. "I thought these masked life signs perfectly?"

Miles loosed a sly smile. "I didn't until you just told me."

Doodle slumped. "Ugh. You're a tricky one, Mister Miles."

"Happens to the best of us sometimes." He shrugged his working shoulder, breaking into a grin.

Well, he'd only been around seventy-two percent certain before. There were eight separate clues he'd picked up before formulating his hypothesis. Still, far too certain for what he'd just done.

Grumbling softly, Doodle reached up to her head, claws slipping underneath to release the metal shell. A face not quite his own stared back at Miles, blue eyes a little larger, fur a little longer, nose and jaw slightly smaller. An XX-Chromosome clone of himself using the same techniques as had given rise to Doodle herself, with Doodle's mind installed. Clinging to increasingly more exaggerated aspects of the original as a way to try and hold on.

'For a given value of Doodle.'

Where it came to personality, Miles had a lot more in common with Robotnik and his daughter than he was comfortable thinking about, but even so there were still differences between them. And with personality, height and intelligence all heavily dependent on genetics, Doodle's mind would degrade as time went on. In the end, Doodle would be gone completely, and "Not-Quite-Girl!Miles with different life experiences" would be there in her place.

"I thought you'd love me if I was small and cute like you." Doodle smiled distantly, her voice far less "Doodle" without the helmet. "I shan't ask the question. From your expression I'm not sure I'd like the answer."

"Sorry. Just… thinking. Lost a lot of- well, everything."

"It's fine, take your time. You said we had stuff to talk about?"

Doodle walked over, setting across from him with a metallic clank, tossing the helmet aside without a care.

Miles rubbed the back of his head, staring at his distorted reflection with mixed feelings as she watched him with an expectant smile.

"How old are you?"

"That's a pretty personal question, isn't it?" Doodle stuck her tongue out at him. "Not sure exactly, but I'm the youngest. I'm not sure if your longevity is from chaos poisoning or your Y-chromosome, but we don't share it."  
"We? How many of you are there?"

"I am the last remaining iteration in this time period." Doodle shrugged. "Not that I blame you, by the way."

Miles gritted his teeth against a wave of nausea. Rationally speaking, his clones could have picked up a ring at any time. Even a single ring would have saved their lives in every case. And, intentional or not, having Miles directly involved in their suicide hurt him every bit as much as Angry!Doodle might have wanted.

"What do I do to make you hate me so?"

"Silly Miles. We _love_ you, even now." Doodle smiled sadly. "Always and forever. But that's not really the important question, is it?"

Miles blinked. Then what was- Ah.

"Can the future be changed?"

"Yes." Doodle spread her hands to gesture to the room around her. "But not here. Not now... And not by you."

"...Why not?" Miles managed to ask, his heart dropping into the pit of his stomach.

Doodle looked around, blue eyes scanning the room until she settled on a thick curtain on the wall. She stood, tearing it down without a second thought before dragging it over to sit beside Miles, leaning in close.

"Let's say this is time." She held up the curtain between two clawed hands. "And you want to change it, say… here?" She reached down, pinching velvet between thumb and foreclaw. "Done. You've changed history." She held her other hand over the fabric. "But say _I_ want to _change_ something?" Doodle tugged at the now taut material with her other hand. "I can't. There's no 'give' anymore. You can only change things so much. More and you risk tearing it completely. Even changing the original time travel event-" Doodle tapped the hand gripping the fabric. "Means you'd need to change time yourself somewhere else - to stop the original time traveller from changing the timeline before they even did it."

Setting aside the curtain, Doodle leaned back against the defused bomb, staring out the window as she continued to talk, her mannerisms while speaking a strange echo of Miles' own.

"Successfully changing the timeline on a paradox level has only happened six times in the last two thousand years on Earth _or_ Little Planet. The sixth one, according to my research, being in the city state of Soleanna, another two of them centred around this exact period of time on Little Planet. Time here is so oversaturated that the entire planet is in a constant state of flux, bouncing between two timelines."

Miles nodded, staring at his own not-quite profile in close up. Evidently Doodle had really applied herself to researching temporal mechanics when he left.

"But you said _I_ couldn't change the future?"

"That's right." Doodle reached for the curtain once more. "If this is time?" She twisted the curtain in her hands, over and over again. "Then this is you." She kept twisting, using her strength to braid it over and over again to form a velvet rope. Tighter and tighter until the fabric visibly strained, threatening to tear apart.

"...What."

"Strange, isn't it?" Doodle smiled dreamily down at her handicraft. "My clever little fox. My poor, determined little dream. Timeline twisted, quest doomed from the start. You are a walking paradox."

"But… how?"

Doodle raised her eyebrows at him. "Wouldn't you know better than me?"

Miles frowned. He'd… Interacted with his past self, had his time eaten by a chronophage, he'd probably been directly involved in at _least_ one paradox, not including the current temporal mess he was in… There were easily _dozens_ of interactions with reality warping magic rocks as well. Oh, and he'd also paradoxed a time stone for good measure. And he'd apparently stopped ageing at some point? And… wait. Why was he surprised again? The only thing he _hadn't_ done at this point was go back in time and become his own father, for several obvious reasons.

"... Wait, how come _Sonic's_ fine?"

Doodle just shrugged and gave him a crooked smile. Miles closed his eyes, head hanging down in misery.

"Time travel is the worst."

"If it helps, I'm pretty sure you might have free will." A metal hand patted his good shoulder.

"For a given value of free will?"

"Tangled time is convergent. Your choices might change _how_ something happens, but not if it _will_ happen."

Miles nodded, fists clenched tight enough that the metal started to deform.

Everything was pointless.

Happy Days would _always_ happen. He would _always_ be taken. His friends would _always_ come to rescue him. And _he_ would always kill them. Happy Days would operate for at least two hundred and thirteen years, collecting endless bones, endless bodies until all sentient life on Earth was extinct or close enough not to matter.

He could not save the world.

He could not save his friends.

He could not only not save _either_ girl, he had killed two _extra_ girls, failed to save another two, and was apparently going to do something terrible to _another_ girl in the near future.

And he would not stop existing.

Miles opened his eyes. Doodle was staring at him, silent, expectant.

"So what happens now?" He didn't cry. There weren't enough tears anyway.

"Now you come and visit me." Doodle smiled, holding out a claw. "I think you can guess where the last time stone is."

"Robotnik's lair?"

"Nope! Silly boy. It's in _Happy Days_." Doodle grinned. "A girl's got to get you to visit _somehow_ before the end, right?"

Miles nodded, taking her hand in his own with a metallic click. No point in keeping destiny waiting. Doodle tossed her helmet to the floor as the two foxes stood, leading them to a window where she halted, her back to him.

"Reason."

"Huh?" Miles pricked an ear.

"You never asked. But I'm what remains of Doodle's reason." She squeezed his hand. "And yours, I suppose?"

Miles squeezed her hand back. "It's nice to meet you, Reason."

And then Reason went out the window, taking Miles along for the ride.


	19. Chapter 19

Even the greatest need could become background noise until something brought it to mind.

Like eating a meal and only then realising you'd been starving all day. Like itch after itch that only made themselves known once you started scratching. Or like the dull ache of an old injury, its pain forgotten until something makes it flare up like new.

And for Miles, dangling from Reason!Doodle's arm, a very large wound had been reopened indeed.

A gnawing pit in his stomach as his two tailed counterpart _carried_ him through the sky. The green roads of Stardust Speedway stretched out far below like twisted vines and the wind ruffled his fur. He felt an aching _need_ to fly, as real and urgent as a drowning man's agonising desperation to breathe, without drowning's eventual release.

Doodle flew on, oblivious to his suffering, making a beeline for the nearest timepost below "as the fox flies". Perhaps, having lived as a human, she realised just how precious and amazing it was to fly through the sky. Or perhaps everything still had that glow of youth for her? Then again, assuming that Doodle uploaded her current mind to each clone in turn, Reason would be both the youngest and oldest of her sisters. Perhaps, with a mind as old as his own, she was already somewhat dulled to wonder? He could only envy that either way. Anything would be preferable to his current melancholy.

But the worst part is wondering _why_ he had lost his tail.

The worst part was wondering if it was _necessary_.

He assumed Doodle was correct and truthful - considering her intelligence, and her imminent betrayal at his hand, _both_ seemed likely. Then, trite as it might sound, Amy was a necessary existence. She _mattered_ to the universe. Events would conspire, one way or another, to deliver Amy to Sonic's side, on time, alive, happy, and completely obsessed with him.

So what would have happened if Miles had done nothing? Robotnik had clearly been there already, ready to pluck them out of the sand with his mecha - and would presumably have found some other reason to replace the mecha's claws with the bumpers the way Sonic had described from when he faced it.

What had his determination to protect Amy actually achieved?

It was a question that made Miles hate himself - more - for even asking it. Was he destined to lose his tail either way? Was Amy destined to be fine either way? Or had his actions saved her some suffering in exchange for his own? At least he could be happy if that was the case. But which events were predetermined? Doodle had said that he had free will. A technical sort of free will, perhaps. A free will that could never change anything, but one that implied that even in fixed time, even for him, the walking paradox - which was the worst superpower ever - there was wiggle room.

The world flashed white as time shifted around him. Miles didn't pay it any real mind. Doodle looked for another future post.

Or would he always _choose_ to act the way he did, for the reasons he did? The curse of his own ruthless rationality, to _always_ react to stimuli in an optimal, predictable, manner?

Could one Miles, out of however many parallel dimensions were necessary for that to happen, decide to just give up? Back to Happy Days, back to mind-numbing bliss? Back to Earth with the handful of rescuees he'd managed to extricate from the Happy Days cloning program to live out, if not his, then at least _their_ remaining days in peace?

And if not… was he a catalyst that cemented events in place? Was he unable to exert any change because _he_ couldn't change? His instinctive dread when Doodles had burned Amy's village, had he really collapsed the waveform of the universe? Was the reason that he couldn't change events because he _remembered_ those events?

Miles sighed, watching the shining brass speedway race by.

Time travel was the worst.

Doodle slapped another timepost in passing, launching seamlessly into the air to build up for a speed generating dive as sparkles crackled around them both.

But apparently it was even worse with determinism.

The world flashed white once more.

* * *

The future was much as Miles remembered it. Misery and decay beneath a steel sky, a dead world without sunlight, the paradox of its twisted timelines providing the power source for the space station that entombed it, haunted by the ghosts of badniks decayed and battered after centuries of suppressing Miles' critter swarm.

The spaceship was new, admittedly. In both senses. An anomaly among rust and darkness and misery, crimson and black colouring marking it firmly under Doodle's preferences - or her father's. Well, it wasn't egg-shaped, so probably not Robotnik.

Leading him by the hand, Doodle stepped inside, settling into one of six vacant seats and patting the chair alongside.

"I didn't expect anything this clean to come out of Happy Days." Miles glanced around the minimalist interior as he sat.

"Well _thanks_." She snapped him a sharp look, tapping at buttons.

"I- uh- I didn't-"

"I'm just joking, silly. Obviously we had to make the lander from scratch. The station was never designed to accommodate visits to the paradox core."

Miles nodded mutely, despite the acceleration. Robotnik, while certainly capable of astonishing malevolence, almost as frequently simply didn't think about the victims of his ambitions at all. He simply didn't _care_ about the people on Little Planet, and his apathy ruined them.

"Shouldn't take too long." Doodle said brightly, clawed hands drumming on the console with little metal clicks.

Miles glanced out the window, at the metal sky expanding overhead. There were a few myths that ancient Mobians managed to reach Earth by firing themselves off a tall tower with catapults when the two celestial bodies were at their closest. Of course, Little Planet's escape velocity still wasn't that high even without the Earth's gravity to assist, but like Doodle said, the trip didn't look like it would take more than a few minutes.

He wasn't looking forward to revisiting this place. The dull, rusted corridors filled with whispering spirits and boundless decay, unspoken testament to the endless horrors perpetrated within.

But Amy was there, and Doodle. He owed them both at least that much for what he'd done. Or would do? Even if his quest was pointless, he could unravel the mess he'd made before seeing things through to the end.

With a dull rumble the ship docked, and one mass of endless grey out of the window was replaced by another.

"Welcome home, Miles." Doodle stood, hand outstretched

Miles flinched. He wanted to say that this place _wasn't_ his home, but given absolute timeframes, he'd spent more time here than anywhere else by at least an order of magnitude. So instead, girding his proverbial loins, Miles slipped out of the seat, reorienting himself to the gravity of the space station with a sense of dread as the exit swished open.

"Sweet Yamaguchi, what?" Miles' jaw dropped open.


	20. Chapter 20

Doodle had kept herself busy.

A vast hangar, all grey and silver, with wall lights glowing brightly in hues of pink and blue stretched out around him, not a speck of dirt or rust to be seen.

And within that hangar, packed tightly even within that enormous space, were two-tailed foxes, with yellow-orange fur.

Miles could have laughed. All his life he'd wondered if there were other foxes like him. All his life he'd been unique, special, different. Now "super-strong, super-fast, super intelligent two-tailed fox" was its own _demographic_ , more populous than almost any other species of Mobian. Doodle had somehow indeed taken away the abnormal from Miles Prower, and what remained really was less than nothing. The _slowest_ fox, the _flightless_ fox. He was now defined by his flaws more than ever.

From young to old, dressed in an assortment of clean, if mismatched, clothing, with thin metal collars their only shared feature, the fox women - no children, Reason was indeed the youngest - stared at him as one with big blue eyes and a degree of reverence that chilled Miles down to his core.

"Welcome home, my love." Reason squeezed his hand, her whispered words echoed a thousandfold around him.

"What- But- How? Why?"

Reason shrugged, still holding his hand as she walked on. Foxes parted like water before them, hands outstretched to lightly brush against Miles' fur as he passed, sending chills down his spine.

"You weren't here. So I made some friends. But they weren't you. Never you." She sighed. "Just me."

Automatic doors slid smoothly open. Another pristine corridor beyond, sparkling like new. Foxes lined up along the walls, each staring silently at him, smiling.

"But you never came back. And the longer we waited, the more of us there were. The more of us, missing you."

"And that's when you came looking for me?"

Reason shook her head. The pair of them passed an open doorway, revealing a storage room within, complete skeletons neatly filed on shelves, small notes crammed full of text accompanying each one.

"We always knew where you were. We just had to look down."

Another storeroom, this one full of clothing, seemingly new, in a range of styles familiar and unfamiliar. Reason continued.

"But we could never call out to you. Never visit you. Could always see but never touch." She smiled dreamily, guiding him along another fox-lined corridor, bones and clothing lined up one after the other, neatly arranged… catalogued. "Because we couldn't, because we _didn't_."

"Time locked."

"Doodle never leaves Happy Days." Reason nodded. "We made _very_ sure of that. We tried so many ways. So many times."

"How long?" Miles looked around. "How has it _been_ so long?"

"Because of you." Reason's smile turned sad once more, pantomimed silently by foxes all around her.

Miles shivered in ever growing horror as his mind began wildly trying to connect the dots.

"I'm so sorry."

"We were born because of you." Reason shrugged. "Father, brother, darling beloved. Didn't I already say?" She opened up a door at the end of the corridor, an almost empty glass cylinder suspended within, surrounded by ever more foxes. "We're _here_ to help you."

Miles blinked dazedly at the contents of the tube. Ragged yellow-orange and white fur. A severed tail, drifting in cloudy gel.

Hands grabbed his arms, a sharp pain blossoming from his shoulder before he could react. Reason's smile filled his fading world.

"And we're here to help _me_ too."

* * *

Warm bright sunlight blazed down from overhead.

Gentle hands kneaded the fur on his head, a sensation that sent faint shivers down his back as their owner hummed a familiar tune.

Miles snapped awake, eyes flaring open to see a young fox staring down at him with a smile, a glowing yellow lamp shining down from the ceiling overhead.

"Sleep well?" Reason waved her claw, orange metal reflecting the warm light to send motes of light dancing off the walls of the small room.

He felt pretty terrible, actually, thanks to whatever they'd drugged him with. Nauseous and lethargic. Miles sighed with relief. Probably not Happy Days.

"What was all that about?" He rubbed his arm with a frown. "What did you do to me?"

"Well, we couldn't have you meeting me like _that_ , could we?" Reason looked offended. "How do you feel? Bit more presentable?"

"You could have just _asked_ , you know?" Miles looked down. His yellow-orange fur had been cleaned for the first time in what must have been centuries. All the little things that rings couldn't fix, dried blood and swamp filth scoured from his body, burnt fur regrown, scrapes and injuries all across his body from the last few days replaced by smooth, unbroken fur once more.

"Well, _I_ think you look better at least."

"What are you-" Miles followed her gaze. "Oh."

There, laid lightly alongside its twin, fur bushy and clean as the rest of him, lay his tail.

"Don't expect much right away. There's a lot of ner-" Reason faltered as Miles leaned forward, wrapping his arms around her shoulders.

"Thank you."

Reason looked away, ears twitching. "It was my fault it happened to you. We had to fix it."

Miles tried to move his tail. It trembled slightly, nothing more. Still something to work with. Might even be able to fix that with rings.

"Well…" Reason shifted in his grip, still looking off to the side. "Shall we go? I'm not getting any younger."

Miles nodded, still trying to move his tail as he pulled away. The base still wiggled, where it had been a stump before, the two still flowed around each other, but where it had been severed marked where its mobility ended. Something to work with at least. Even limp and numb, dragging along behind him when he didn't lift it with his other tail, the added weight made him realise just how _unbalanced_ he had felt before.

Reason led him out of the room, back to the original room, the cylinder now empty, but the room still full of collared Doodlefoxes, al l staring at him in expectant silence.

"Um, thank all of you, too?" Miles rubbed the back of his head. He didn't really have time to hug everyone, even if he might feel like it right now.

The foxes smiled silently. Blue eyes unblinking.

"We don't have much sense of self I'm afraid." Reason spoke up, walking past them and out into an elevator beyond. Even the buttons shone like new. "Especially the older us."

Miles nodded, though the struggles of mental clones installed on someone else's physical clones living in a vast space commune with only themselves was honestly not something he could readily relate to. Doodle spent almost her entire life in Happy Days - or at least up until he met her. She didn't have much frame of reference for normality at the best of times.

"So why do they all wear collars?"

Reason flinched, if only slightly, before rapping her own metal armour with a clawed fist.  
"We all have collars, little dream. Even you." Reason smiled again, though there was no joy in it. "We're here. I'm sorry in advance."

Miles didn't have a chance to reply before the door of the elevator swished open, to reveal yet another tube room within, this time occupied.

A human female, her long white hair floating free in the gel interior, hung suspended in the tube, unmoving, her eyes closed. Papery skin pale from a life without sunlight, frail with age and lined with wrinkles.

And above her head, coiled within a halo of wires, was the time stone. Glittering orange. A blinking terminal. Two metal lockers stood alongside, enclosed within a second glass room around her. Ancient foxes, orange fur now streaked silver, sat motionlessly in attendance, not even looking to Miles as they entered.

"It's been a long time, Doodle." Miles smiled sadly. He was no expert in human physiology, but he could tell at a glance just how long it must have been for her.

"I waited just like I promised. Tried to hold out as long as I could." Reason said beside him, her voice tight. "I barely brought the time stone home in time to save me."

Miles walked forward, pressing his fingers against the glass.

"If I'd known…"

"You would have gone anyway," Reason replied. "We both know that."

Miles fell silent, fingers resting on the glass, his friend so far from him in time and space.

"How much was time dilated?" He asked, finally.

"Approximately one day on the surface is around a year up here," Reason spoke again, this time at his ear, breath tickling his fur. "And about ten times that when you were fully outside of the dilation effect."

Fifty-eight years she had watched him wander the surface at that slow, sedate pace, and assuming that the past was outside dilation, coming on forty years again while he raced to find the time stones. Doodle had waited for him to come home for almost a century. And Reason, unless she followed him the moment he had reactivated the time network, had been born within the last few days.

"So what will you do?" Reason stood before the terminal, metal claws hovering off its surface.

"What do you mean?" Miles finally tore his eyes away from one Doodle to the next.

"You probably have at least some idea of what happens next, little dream." Reason waved her hand around the room vaguely. "But I can at least give you the choice. Will you stay here? We can set you up in Happy Days for as long as you like. I-" She gestured at the Doodle floating suspended in the capsule. "Will never know, I'm frozen completely now. But I-" She pointed at herself and a few other foxes. "Would be perfectly able to keep you company there without any of the problems that the rabbit girl had. Though we can still make some of her if you wanted. And we could clone some duplicates of your hedgehog girl as well. I don't mind sharing. We would get the original back home safe and sound, in plenty of time to preserve the timeline, and you could live with us forever. Together, happy, safe, with anything and everything you could imagine."

Miles stared at her, mind and heart racing together.

He'd never expected eternal happiness. He'd never asked for it. He'd never done anything to deserve it.

Perhaps he just didn't _want_ to be happy?

But... to procrastinate on the unthinkable was an intoxicating temptation. To bathe in the fuzzy warmth of Happy Days here, long after the world had ended, long after there was anyone left to depend on him. To forget about the pain he'd caused and would cause.

Reason gazed at him, silent.

Finally, Miles took a slow, deep breath.

Maybe there just weren't enough parallel dimensions?

"Open the tube."


	21. Chapter 21

"I knew you'd say that." Reason sighed, hands already sweeping across the console screen without looking.

"I'm-"

"Don't apologise." She gave a tight lipped smile. "Save your words, and speak them quickly."

She stepped back as fluid gurgled from Doodle's tank.

In the exact same moment the aged foxes stood, rustling forward with the considered movements of age. Doodle dropped out of the tube, coughs shaking her frail body. Gloved hands gently caught her, lowering her to the ground as other foxes shuffled to the lockers, pulling familiar garments free. In moments Doodle, long white hair bunched into twin ponytails, reclined upon a living sofa, her red and yellow jacket even more oversized now than when he'd first met her, though for different reasons.

A hand pushed Miles forward from behind, and he stumbled forward, into the glass antechamber which closed behind him. A white gloved hand drifted up to his cheek.

"You're as adorable as I remembered." Doodle smiled, ruffling his fur.

"Hello, Doodle." Miles smiled, pushing his head gently into her caress. "I'm sorry it took me so long to get here."

"I knew you'd come back." Her now cloudy blue eyes were wet. "I waited so long, but I knew you'd come back. I'm sorry I… got so big."

"You're still cute though."

"I love it when you lie." She laughed, brightly enough Miles almost couldn't see the pain. "Did you like my girls? I thought you might like me more that way."

"They're nice." Miles smiled. "But I always thought you were perfect just the way you are."

"They set everything up just the way you wanted. Do you remember?" Doodle shuddered, her hand creeping up to her chest. "I did okay, didn't I? You saved the world?"

"You did great, Doodle." Miles leaned forward, wrapping his arms around her so delicately. Her body trembled beneath him. "You were a big help. Thank you for always taking care of me."

"No problem." Doodle smiled. "You're my dream after all. I have to-"

She grimaced, gnarled hand momentarily clenching around his fur.

System shock. Being wrenched from the life support system that had been keeping her alive, her body was now shutting down at a rapid pace. His fellow prisoner was being claimed by Happy Days at last.

"Sorry I can't-"

Miles shushed her with a finger. "You don't have to be sorry for anything." He nestled close, rubbing his furred cheek over hers. "I'm here. And I'm not going anywhere."

"My beautiful... dream. Always see you trying… so... hard." Doodle kneaded the fur on Miles' head with trembling fingers. "It's okay to… just do your best. It's okay… to... be... wrong… some..."

Doodle never finished the sentence. Miles held her close as her body stiffened, then stilled, cloudy eyes drooping closed.

"Goodbye, Doodle."

He didn't know if his whisper reached her.

But at least he was there at the end. And he held her close long after it.

Finally, after how long he didn't know, after Doodle's warmth began to fade beneath him, a hand laid on his shoulder. Reason stood by him, her blue eyes glistening.

"Thank you. I was happy."

Miles nodded.

How long had he known Doodle? From his perspective he'd first met her three months ago. They'd spent just over a week together aboard Happy Days, first escaping, then preparing to leave. And recently a few days interacting with her through clones?

But she'd been watching him her entire life. First in the dreams of Happy Days, and while he wandered the halls of the Death Egg. Then while he travelled across Little Planet. Even when he was gone, over his decades in the past, she had been surrounded by _almost_ him this whole time. He had been part of her entire life, literally from cradle to grave.

He had barely known her. He had been her everything.

"It's time to go, Miles." Reason laid her claw on his shoulder. "Everything has to end."

Miles dashed a hand over his eyes, nodding as he straightened. As soon as he moved, Doodle's retinue of ancient foxes straightened her body out between them, settling into cross-legged repose on each side of her. Miles threaded between them, staring up at the orange time stone still dangling from the tube.

Pink, green, blue, red, yellow, purple, cyan… Orange.

Miles hand moved towards the time stone as though he was drawn to it.

Perhaps he was?

Sonic had talked about Robotnik stealing the seven time stones.

He'd never mentioned there being _eight_ of them.

But he'd never mentioned any miracles either. And Miles could certainly use a few nowadays.

The stone disappeared in a sparkle of light, its metal halo tumbled down unsupported. An alien familiarity spread through Miles' body. Like and unlike the Chaos state, an overwhelming sense of…

Precision.

Miles could _feel_ where he was. When he was. How he had got here. Where he was going. All to around... ten seconds or so? He looked down at his own hand, at the space where it was, and the space it would be. Fire overlaid metal overlaid empty space. A hand laid over his own and released it all at once. Miles blinked, the action repeating itself through his consciousness long before and after it occurred.

This was going to take some getting used to.

A hand grasped his own. Words tumbled over themselves in every possible order. Miles closed his eyes, trying to concentrate as he pieced the words together in his head.

"You need to leave now," said Reason.

"Now you need to leave," Reason said.

Miles followed her, or would. Or already had. He wasn't sure where in his timeline he started dry retching either. Rhythmic beeping progressed in parallel with itself until it was a solid unbroken tone.

"Our work is done. Our time is over," replied Reason.

"Our work is over. Our time is done," Reason replied.

Miles opened his eyes to Reason's sad face. To burning flames. To blinding light.

"What's going on?" Miles asked.

"We were always to die together. In the same order we were born."

"We were born in order to die. We were always the same together."

Miles looked at Doodle's glass chamber. The collars of the ancient foxes were/would be beeping. Miles could only watch in horror as they detonated while he watched in horror. A sea of flames engulfed the interior, the black interior empty save for blackened soot, metal flooring glowing red.

The foxes never made a sound.

"Why?!"

"Shadows cannot exist without light."

"Light cannot exist without shadows."

Miles turned on Reason, who turned to him in surprise, who looked on dispassionately at the scene in the tube.

He leapt, hands outstretched. Then he understood why he leapt. Then he leapt, hands outstretched.

"Don't you need to save me?"

"You don't need to save me."

"Don't need me to save you?"

Miles slammed into her, fingers scrabbling at her armour, trying to find a release switch. A seam he could use to tear the metal cage from her body.

"Let me go! Save yourself!"

"Let yourself go! Save me!"

"Let go! Save me yourself!"

Slowly, Miles was growing accustomed to his new lens over reality. Too slowly to be useful. He searched places he knew he'd searched, fruitlessly covering the same ground as he already covered to no avail. Batted aside Reason's resistance before it arrived, only to be pushed back when it did.

And then it came. A fiery explosion, but he wasn't hurt. A blaze of red, but he wasn't hurt. A glittering golden ring, spinning on the ground. But he had none.

Reason grabbed his shoulder in her claw, plucking a shield generator from his bandolier and smashing it into his face. Miles staggered back, fire shield blazing to life are him just before she exploded.

Miles reached out, plucking the golden ring from the floor with dreamlike certainty. It did not absorb into his hammerspace. There was no hammerspace up here in orbit, without Chaos Emeralds, without Time Stones.

But he _had_ the time stones?

Miles reached out, pressing the ring to Reason's temple.

And Reason died in front of his eyes. Engulfed in flame.

Miles stumbled back, clutching his eyes against the blinding light that assaulted him through them and before them, watching his afterimage picking up a spinning ring again and again until it passed beyond his awareness into the past. A blackened smudge stained the floor.

And a yellow-orange vixen sat, blinking at its centre, metal armour burned away to leave unblemished fur beneath.


	22. Chapter 22

"What did you _do_?" Reason asked, eyes wide.

"I'm not totally sure." Miles shrugged, starting his answer moments before she asked. "Saving you."

Ugh. Still not perfect. But he was getting there. He was at least getting better at guessing the order of words being spoken.

"I was supposed to die!"

"Well, I guess you can still die if you want?" He rubbed the back of his head with a frown, the blazing orange fire shield still danced around him. "Not like I can stop you if you're _really_ determined."

"Why bother saving me in the first place then?" Reason scowled at him.

"If it was _saving_ you, you needed saving." He smiled.

"That's circular logic."

It was a circular way of saving her too.

"I don't care. I didn't want you to die as well."

He'd have saved them all if he could.

"I'm already dead!" She pressed bare hands against her head, eyes wide. "You watched me die!"

"I watched _Doodle_ die."

"I _am_ Doodle!"

"You already _told_ me what you are." Miles crouched down beside her, bringing her inside the burning aura. "You are what remains of Doodle's reason." He brushed away tears from her cheeks that hadn't fallen yet. "It's _okay_ to remain, Reason."

"But…" Reason stared at him, confused, uncertain. "I'm all _alone_."

"You're _unique_." Miles smiled. "Same as everyone else."

Reason fell silent, staring down at the blackened floor, her tears brushed away as they started to fall.

"Think about it as long as you like. I have to go save the world."

"You can't. You fail."

"But you never told Doodle that, did you?" Miles stood. Because he'd seen himself stand. Grinned, because he saw himself grinning. "So I'd better keep trying."

"And when you fail?"

"Then I'll try something else. Forever. Want to come with me?"

Reason smiled despite herself, still staring at the floor.

"I love you so much."

"I know. I'm adorable. You're lucky, it's genetic. So?"

"I want to… to stay here for a bit. Is that okay?"

"I _have_ to leave." He'd seen himself leave three times already. "But I promise I won't be long this time... I hope you're still here when I get back."

Reason didn't reply. He knew she wouldn't. Didn't.

But he was leaving. More insistent every passing moment. More and more it dominated his future.

Ruffling the fur on her head, Miles turned away, following himself to the door of the elevator.

"Just press the glowing button." Reason called after him. "Everything is ready for you."

"I know."

Miles closed his eyes against things said and unsaid as the elevator doors shut behind him. He blindly pressed the button he knew he'd press, turned in the direction he knew he'd turn, and threw up in the corner.

It was _too much_.

And it was getting _worse_.

Miles pulled his fur back out of the way as he vomited, patting himself on the back as he supported himself from falling. He was spread thin across _so_ many places. So much time.

At least he'd never need a mirror again. Miles stepped across from himself, wiping bile from his reflection's chin as the door chimed open.

"Off we go." He followed himself down a brightly lit hallway, passing by black smudges while trying not to think too hard about them.

Wait.

Miles turned around, glancing at the marks all the way out the corridor.

"Seriously?" Miles shook his head in disbelief.

Doodle had left him one final message. Painted on the walls in binary with the ashes of the clones.

She really was one of a kind.

Also? Completely insane.  
Miles read the message as he walked, simultaneously impressed, revolted, and touched. Probably for the best he'd already thrown up, or the smell of scorched flesh would have made him do it now.

Miles reached the end of the corridor, the end of a message written by the dead, just for him.

"I will. I promise." He nodded.

She was always _such_ a clever girl.  
The door slid open, and Miles stepped through to a room much like the one he had woken from before. The occupant on the bed dozed lightly on her stomach, a small mark on the back of her neck where the neural link had recently been surgically removed from her neck. She was slightly taller than he remembered as well. Slightly taller than him now. Almost a year had passed for her, after all, however long it had felt in the timeless dream of Happy Days.

There was no sign of the other villagers, but that was fine. Everything had been made ready already.

The pink hedgehog stirred. Miles sighed in relief, a worry eased that only revealed its full intensity now it was resolved.

"Wh-... So...?" Amy blinked sleepily up at him. "Prower? What's with the... fire?"

"Hey, A-... _Pricklepear_." Miles grinned down at her. "Take it easy. You've been asleep for a long time."

"I…" Amy rubbed an eye with furless fingers. "I was… at home? I remembered a fox took us away, but... then I was home? Wasn't you. But she..." Amy blinked again. "She had two… Prower!" She leapt at him, arms outstretched to tackle him in a hug. "Your tail! It's back!"

"Sure is." Miles grinned, rubbing the back of his head. "Sorry it took so long to get here."

"I'm so glad."

"Me too. But, uh, can you put on some clothes?"

"What?!" Amy's eyes widened. "Ah!"

"Yeah, you were right. It _is_ weird. You made it weird."

Amy punched him hard enough to break his fire shield as she turned away, blushing furiously.

Miles grinned, rubbing his cheek as she grabbed a pile of clothes neatly piled in the corner.

"Why didn't you _tell_ me?!"

"It was funnier this way."

"You are _such_ a jerk."

"Still saved you though."

"Ugh. _Fine_ , you're still my hero. My stupid jerk hero. Happy? What even _is_ this place?" Amy whirled back around, zipping the collar of her shirt at the back as she stepped into her shoes. "What happened to me? To us? Where's everyone else?"

"Your family is fine. They're waiting for you." Miles rubbed his chin. "This place… Is…"

A tomb.

Hell.

Heaven.

A cradle.

...Home.

Miles said all of these words. Didn't say any of them. "Nothing special. Generic supervillain lair. Let's get you home, okay? It's time for you to meet Sonic."

"Really?" Amy's eyes went wide.

"Sure is. You'll be just in time." Miles smiled.

"That's… Great." Amy smiled. "So you found all the time stones before you found me?"

"I had to. Why do you think I took so long? Saving you was a massive quest."

"Really?"

"Of course!" Miles grinned. "I had to fight _four_ robot copies of me, collect all the time stones, and even save Stardust Speedway from getting blown up."

A door slid open. Miles would/had opened it. Another corridor stretched out before them.

"Really?" Amy blinked at him. "That's amazing! I feel just like a princess now!"

"... Do princesses get kidnapped often?" Miles raised an eyebrow.

"Well, I assume no. But when they do, it's really hard work, right? So were the bad guys super strong? Were they sent by your evil twin? Was Doctor Robotnik secretly behind everything the whole time?"

Miles laughed for the first time in a long, long while. "I'll tell you all about it on the way out of here."

So he did.

And he lied shamelessly the whole time.

Because children _deserved_ stories that were black and white.

Where virtuous heroes triumphed over wicked villains.

And nobody ever died.


	23. Chapter 23

By an external metric, Miles left the Death Egg with Amy merely seconds after he entered it with Reason. The lander accelerated to unreasonable speeds as it travelled further from the centre of the time dilation, to land gently on Little Planet at a hundred times the minimum safe speed to do so.

From an internal metric, it took an eternity. Living every second as, before, and after it happened so many times over. Walking in front, behind and beside himself, watching Amy's face as he talked, her eyes wide with wonder at his tale of highly sanitised heroics, laughing, or scowling, as he joked and teased. His view growing longer, deeper all the time. More time, more depth, more _precision_.

"What is this place?" Amy looked around, hand over her mouth. "Is this Stardust Speedway?"

"A Stardust Speedway that will never be." Miles rubbed the back of his head. "A Speedway Sonic never saved."

"But-"  
"But he _does_. Yes. And when he does, this all looks so beautiful." Miles stared out across the sceneries with a wistful smile, taking Amy's hand as he walked over to where a timepost would be. He wasn't sure what his future self was thinking as he led them there. Probably wondering why he was going, but Miles went regardless, snagging rings on the way. "The future is actually one of the safest places to be right now, but I won't make you walk through it. It's a miserable place."

"Is... this where you're from originally?"

"What?" Miles snapped around to look at her, though less surprised by knowing she'd ask the question.

"You called me Amy, before." She smiled faintly as she walked. "Back when you-... when you were hurt. I never told you that name."

Miles grimaced. Had he? Rookie time traveller mistake right there.

"So it's true then. You're a time traveller, come back to the past to save your ruined future from Robotnik." Amy swooned onto him. "So cool!"

"Close enough." Miles grunted, half dragging her as she clung to his arm.

"I knew it! So what happens to me in the future? How far in the future are you from? Do we meet in the future? Am I a leader of the future resistance to save Little Planet? Did you come back to change the future because I died tragically saving you from Robotnik?"

"... You know what? Fine." Miles rolled his eyes. "You grow up into an amazing person. You never give up trying to do the right thing, even when you're scared, and you always try to follow your dreams, no matter what."

"Wow. Really?!" Amy squealed with glee. "I'm going to be so _cool_."

Miles snorted. "You'll get plenty of chances to show Sonic your feminine willies as well."

"Hm." Amy didn't take the bait, her face serious. "And what about you?"

Miles pressed his hand against the timepost, sparkling energy crackling up and into his body. And for the first time he _understood_ the process. How _crude_ Eggman's methods were.

"Me?" He _stepped_. Corroded pipes glittered like new once more. Robotnik had intended the entire speedway to play the fanfare of his victory as he oppressed the people of Little Planet. "I make that happen."

Miles _stepped_ again, and vines intermingled with golden pipes, in the process of becoming, not quite either thing, before the pipes never were.

He tutted. Too far. Or not far enough?

"Wha- You didn't have to run that time?" Amy stared around her open-mouthed.

"I couldn't move fast enough to use it anyway." Miles stretched out his free hand and _stepped_ one last time.

The _Meka Terisu_ appeared beneath his fingers. A moment later, scratch marks faded from its paint, its propeller became never broken. Amy gasped in surprise.

"How are you doing all this?"

"I dunno." Miles rubbed the back of his head. "Time Control?" Bullets fell from his fingers, pinging off the half-metal floor unheeded. "Wait. 'Chrono Control' sounds cooler. I can explain the maths to you if you like. But they'd probably give you a stroke."

Amy stuck her tongue out at him, hopping up into the mecha's open hatch without waiting for an invitation.

Miles sighed, wiping blood from his own ear in advance. He'd expected a bit more excitement on her part. She was meeting Sonic soon, after all. Miles zipped over to snatch another few rings before following her on board. Not long to go.

Climbing up into the mech after her, Miles prepared for the end he knew was coming.

He'd already seen it, after all.

* * *

"Here we are."

The pair emerged from the _Meka Teirusu_ onto a seemingly unimportant patch of grass, dotted with mechanised trees and spiky grasses laced with metal.

Amy wordlessly slipped out of the access hatch. She'd been quiet the whole trip, staring out the window with a troubled expression.

It was always hard to meet your heroes, Miles mused as he followed her out of the mech.

"This is it?" Amy peered around the distorted terrain, so different from before.

"This is it." Miles grinned, snagging rings as he walked a lap around the clearing. That made it fifty-one now. "Welcome to the Present. There's a nominal chance that Sonic will miss you by running through another time period, but if not, this is where you'll meet Sonic for the very first time. Don't worry, I'll drop you off in Collision Chaos before you know it. You _definitely_ meet him there."

Miles sighed, staring out to the place he'd once been able to see Amy's village, down at the bottom of the waterfall. Now there wasn't even a trace. Mechanisation had claimed its ruins completely. As they always had, as they always would.

"You did a good job." Miles patted the side of the _Meka Teirusu_ with a smile. "I'm sorry to have to leave you, but you need to go home now."

With the tap of his wrist the giant pudgy fox mech turned away, trundling off towards that waterfall on autopilot.

"Wait, you were talking to the _robot_?" Amy stared at him in disbelief.

"Obviously?"

"What about _me_?" Amy huffed.

"Did you want me to pat you too?" Miles tilted his head to the side. "I _could_ install an autopilot module I sup-" He ducked a spiky ball of grass she kicked at him.

"You are _such_ a jerk. You have _no_ idea how heroes are supposed to treat a lady." She glared at him, arms folded.

"Not really a hero. Told you before." Miles stared off at the shrinking form of the _Meka Teirusu_. "But if it helps, you did great too, some great sidekicking in there, take it from me. If I _were_ a hero I'd want a sidekick like you around on a full time basis."

"So... is this really it?" Amy stood beside him, grinding the toe of her shoe in the dirt. "Is this... goodbye?"

"This is where we never meet again, you never try to find me... and you forget you ever saw me."

"How could I _ever_ forget you?" Amy grinned, lightly rapping her knuckles into his shoulder. "You're the meanest, lamest, most _annoying_ fox I've ever met. And…" Her face fell. "I wish you didn't have to go."

"I do though." Miles stared at himself in the distance, a sinking feeling in his heart. "I already left."

"Heh. You're _so_ weird." Amy leaned forward, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. "No matter what anyone else says, Prower, you're _my_ hero. And you always will be. Remember that."

"One of us has to." Miles closed his eyes. When he reopened them, his eyes glowed with a swirling kaleidoscope of colour even as the orange bled from his fur. Streaks of black fur danced across white as his body entered into a Chronos state, had always been in a Chronos state, _would_ always be in a Chronos state.

Amy gave a brief squeak of surprise as he laid his hand against her cheek. Against _all_ of her cheek. Forever and always. Her eyes turned dull.

"The tarot told you that you needed to be here." Miles gently pushed her off of him, leading her by the hand to where she would be waiting. "Your family is safe. When everything is over, you can find them hiding in a cave under the waterfall near your village."

He'd made it for them himself, after all. Miles sighed. His discontent stretching across infinity.  
"And when you choose to leave Little Planet, that will be the last time you see them. The next time Little Planet returns everyone you ever knew will have died. I'm sorry."

Amy didn't reply, she couldn't.

"But they will live long, happy lives. And they will be _so_ proud of you." Miles squeezed her hand one last time before he turned away, motes of time energy tumbling from his fur. "I'll make sure of it."

Miles let go, twin tails twirling around in endless spirals, and stepped into everywhen.

Amy Rose blinked, confused and alone among the trees.

"Huh? I was…" She shook her head. "Right! The cards. I wonder if I'll get to meet Sonic today?" She hopped around excitedly, glancing this way and that, hoping to see her hero at last.

There were few memories that time couldn't erase, in the end.


	24. Chapter 24

"Welcome back."

Reason stood on the topmost floor of the Death Egg, staring up at the stars through the space station's transparent outer surface.

"I'm impressed. Did you predict I was coming, or did you conclude I'd show up the first time you said 'welcome back'?" Miles stood behind her, white and black fur glowing softly in the starlight.

"If you're asking the question then I don't tell you the answer anyway." Reason smiled faintly, patting the girder beside her.

She looked a little happier, which wasn't saying much. Now wearing simple white gloves, black and white sneakers with a loose black and white hoodie that stretched down to her knees, Miles was forced again to wonder if she had some undisclosed foresight into his current state and dressed to match. He settled down alongside her, endless tasks running in parallel as he joined her, staring up at the sky.

"We… _I_ come up here sometimes. We always liked looking at the stars. And the Earth, when it's here."

"Me too. It's been forever since I looked up at the sky like this though."

"You look handsome."

"Thanks. Sort of feel like a zebra."

"Does it hurt?"

"All the time. But it's fine, I've had worse. You know how there are no rings up here on the Death Egg?"

"Yes?"

"Turns out I've been collecting them. All of them. At least since the Death Egg went dark."

"Ah." Reason nodded, rubbing the back of her head as she leaned back on the girder, supporting her weight on her tails. "So have you thought of a way to save your world?"

"I'm afraid to even go _near_ Happy Days." Miles sighed. "Saved Little Planet at least. I set the inner core of the Death Egg to cycle through a day/night projection once per year."

"I see."

"Yeah, should be barely noticeable from the surface. Sky's the wrong colour though. Who knew skies were so difficult?"

The two of them fell into silence, only one of them sitting together, the other apart in every sense of the word.

"You doing okay?" Miles finally asked. He didn't need to hurry, he was already doing everything he could.

"I still haven't really processed everything. You only left an hour ago."

"Huh, really?"

Reason nodded.

"Sorry. Didn't give you much time."

"It's fine, it's my fault."

"Ah _ha_!" Miles grinned. "I knew it."

"Yes, you caught me." Reason sighed. "Very clever."

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Miles shifted a little closer.

"Beyond saving me, twice, naming me, twice, and being the literal reason for my existence?"

"The more the better. I could use the distraction. I'm pretty sure if not for all the rings I'm collecting I'd melt." Miles grinned.

"Why do you smile when it hurts?" Reason twisted the tips of her tails in her fingers. "Am I supposed to do that?"

Miles shrugged, energy sparking from his shoulders. "I guess some people think so? You don't have to though. I'm not much, but I can at least be here for you."

Reason giggled, kicking her feet over the edge of the girder. "Not much? You must know quite the people, Miles."

"The best." Miles nodded. "If someone like Sonic was here, he'd have probably solved _everything_ by now. Well, not like this." He tapped himself on the chest. "I think _this_ would kill him." He smiled, staring up at the stars. "But somehow he'd pull it off, I'm sure."

"Then why not fetch him?"

"Because I don't." Miles chuckled, mirthlessly. "All this power, and I still can't change anything."

"So you were _meant_ to save me?"

"I don't know. Have you happened yet?"

"That's an odd question."

"I spend half my time trying to answer odd questions. I- we might have an advantage in dealing with this stuff thanks to our tails, but there's a big difference between moving in 4D and _thinking_ in 4D."

"So do you have any answers?"

"A few. It took forever though." Miles stretched a white arm out to the sky above. "But I saved you because I wanted to. Even if you're more confusing than all this time stuff put together."

"Am I?"

"Well, yeah." Even the part where he had these black marks scattered across his fur. Why did he have them? They sort of looked like letters. Or numerals. Was his Chronos state thematically linking him to roman numerals? A clock face? Why would time _possibly_ have a theme related to a clock? Was it him? Did _he_ have some kind of clock fixation that was manifesting in his Chronos state?

He shook himself off his tangent, literally, by the shoulder, from behind, and continued.

"What was it you said? Daughter, sister, d… soulmate? We met, what, two days ago?" It was a semi-serious question, he could have been sitting here for _months_ now, for all he knew. "But you know more about me than pretty much _anyone_."

"In both senses."

"Yeah. So… What are we? I've never been 'Green-Beard'ed before, but I assume that's part of it. And having someone around that's smart enough to really talk to is… nice. I mean, generally people go cross-eyed when I mention Hamilton, but you just _nodded_. So I uh, guess I, uh-"

"I have loved you since the first time I opened my eyes." Reason smiled at him with Doodle's dreamy smile. "And I had a lifetime of loving you before that. Did I-" Her smile faded a little. "Did _Doodle_ ever tell you she had a doll of you when she was very young? We don't remember our father, but we _do_ remember that doll."

Another Miles absentmindedly brushed away a tear from her cheek as he walked by on his way elsewhen. Miles reached over and squeezed her hand.

"It makes me happy that you're thinking of me enough to be confused, but I'm honestly not sure myself." Reason squeezed his hand back. "Does there need to be one single answer? Is it okay if every answer is a little wrong?"

"It's... okay to be wrong." Miles suddenly laughed, making Reason almost fall off the girder in surprise. "You know what? I think I _have_ found my answer."

"Really?" Reason's ears pricked up.

"Sure have." Miles grinned, kaleidoscope eyes dancing. "I never even realised it before!"

He pulled her close, pointing up at the sky with delight. The energy radiating from his body made her fur stand on end. "It's completely wrong!"

And then he was gone like he never was. Only Reason's upturned fur was any indication he had ever been.

She smiled sadly, going back to looking up at the stars.

"Best of luck this time, my love."


	25. Chapter 25

Miles' laughter echoed across centuries.

It was funny how you could see something so many times without ever really noticing it until you stopped to _look_.

It was funny how even the smallest detail changed everything.

It was funny how close tears were to laughter.

These facts were eternal:

Happy Days exists, and always operates for a period of over two hundred years, mounting an endless campaign to "take care" of all children on Earth until the planet is doomed. Their bones float, suspended in endless Happy Days tubes, mountains of children's clothes discarded in the dark.

Doodle is placed into the Happy Days simulation at a young age, and dies on board, never leaving the station.

Miles Prower arrives up in Happy Days shortly after this beginning.

Sonic, Knuckles and Amy come to rescue him. They die in Happy Days.

Cream is kidnapped. She also dies in Happy Days. Her clones, neural and otherwise, are sacrificed at a rapid rate to provide a companion for Miles in the Happy Day simulation to reduce his escape attempts.

Miles escapes the simulation, frees Doodle, and fights Mama, the caretaker of Happy Days, killing her.

The only escapees of Happy Days are a baker's dozen of Mobian Rabbits, sent to Earth as Miles travels back to the past with the Pink Timestone, leaving Doodle to stay on board.

And _nothing_ can prevent these events. Especially not Miles himself.

But he _still_ might save the world.

He _still_ could change his future.

He just had to be _wrong_.

He just had to be _terrible_.

And where better to start than in the middle?

* * *

"Welcome back." Reason raised her eyebrows at him, a transparent bottle of liquid partway to her lips.

"Has it been long?" Miles stared through her.

"You just left." Reason drank her meal - the only kind there was, up here - as Miles slumped down beside her. "Still having trouble? Or just starting to, I suppose?"

Miles nodded, dropping a fabric sack to the ground with a clatter, his monochrome arms wrapping around his knees.

"I see." She patted him on the shoulder.

"Did I tell you what I was doing?"

"You're saving the world." Reason smiled.

"No, I mean-"

Reason put her fingers over his lips.

"You. Are. Saving. The. World." Her smile didn't waver.

"But... who am I saving it _from_?"

"I wondered for a long time where you found the ring that saved me that day. Did one version of me decide I wanted to live? Did a ring just appear at that moment through chance? Did I die originally, and another you left a ring to bring me back?" Reason placed the empty bottle on the metal floor beside her and twisted round to plonk her head on his lap, staring dreamily up at him. "I'll never know. Time is funny like that. Either I lived anyway, I died and you pulled off a miracle to save me, or I always lived because you somehow never let me die."

Reason reached up and poked him in the nose.

"But if free will exists, if an original cause exists, somewhere out there at the other end of infinity, then I know that you were _not_ that cause. Because you are here, with me, trying not to cry."

Miles rubbed his nose, pouting. "I wasn't crying."

"You will," Reason replied. "But in the end, you are doing this because it is the _best_ choice, or because there is _no_ choice."

She closed her eyes, stretching out with a yawn.

"Be sure to stay right here when you leave. I'm comfortable."

"I will do no such thing."

"Yes you will." She murmured smugly.

Miles rolled his eyes, grabbing his fabric sack and storming off with a clatter.

And in the very same moment, as though he never left, Miles slipped back into position, muttering to himself.

Reason's smug smile intensified as she settled into her nap.

* * *

A young girl with chestnut hair stood in front of an unborn fox with two tails. The first of many more to come. Miles stood behind her, hand reaching out towards her slender back.

But he didn't call out. Because he didn't.

Miles turned around, pulling his beam knife from his glove, and scorched a message into the door before he left. Just like the one she'd left for him.

And he watched.

Doodle roamed the station. Repairing, collecting, cataloguing, preparing, building - especially more cloning vats. So many more cloning vats.

Because he had asked her to.

Because he hadn't the strength to do it himself.

And he followed her, never seen, never felt. Because he _wasn't_. The two of them never met.

But he never left her alone. It was second nature. He was a shadow, after all. When she dropped a tool in her absentminded quest, it was always where she first reached to find it. When she fell asleep at her work, she always woke covered in a blanket against the icy chill.

And he watched her grow up. The child became a lovely young woman - at least by human standards - never losing that dreamy expression through all her years of solitude. The woman became a mother, of a sort, as the first of many clones emerged, already walking and talking, already _her_. As driven and directed as the original, just in a smaller package. At least at first. Miles watched her decay into him over the years, a Miles without history or uniqueness as many, many more hims followed.

It was fascinating. It was horrifying. Mostly the latter to watch his clones turned into a eusocial hive by genetic proximity, their personality ground into nothing by time and each other.

He followed them too. Every single one. If he could not bear to do the deeds himself, he could at least bear witness to them.

His stolen moments with Doodle became rarer and rarer, but he watched a lifetime of interactions take their place. Watched her grow older day by day, working, laughing, talking, _being_. Sometimes sad, sometimes angry, sometimes scared, but always driven, chasing _his_ dream across the ages.

Until finally Reason was born. The remaining cloning tanks were emptied and altered in readiness, collars fitted in grim preparation. Their world made itself ready for the end they knew was coming.

And when Doodle fell, unable to stand beneath the weight of the years any longer. Miles followed her one last time, a final message stained into her tank in binary:

_0011110000110011_

He left the moment his past self arrived, an ache in his chest. The first of many misdeeds soundly in place.

When next?

He hesitated. So much to do still. Centuries to make wrong.

So he went back to Happy Days, Doodle's notes in his hand, her carefully catalogued storerooms made ready on the other end of time.

The Death Egg was dark and empty when he arrived. Little Planet below was encased in steel pretending to be sunshine, and Amy was long gone. Off stalking Sonic. Hopefully happy on Earth. Hopefully come to terms with the loss of her family, even if she could never forgive him for it.

Miles sighed, breath misting out into the air.

This was where it all started.

This was where he woke up from Happy Days. This was where dreams of happiness ended. Where his nightmares truly began.

Pulling his beam knife from his glove, Miles raised his other hand, blinding light illuminating the darkness as time distorted, years becoming days, minutes, seconds… His very own Twilight Cage in reverse.

He'd better get to work.

* * *

Deep in Final Fever, the ultimate command centre of his Little Planet invasion, Doctor Robotnik worked alone, putting the finishing touches on his ultimate weapon.

The _R-9_ , its armour practically indestructible, perhaps the most powerful machine he had ever constructed, powered with the pink timestone he had recovered from the fox girl. It would surely mean the end for that meddling hedgehog _this_ time. He chortled to himself, tugging on his moustache.

"Ah, here you were." A voice muttered from behind him.

Robotnik whirled around in surprise, the empty hangar devoid of life, mechanical or otherwise.

There was a crash. He turned back to see a hole missing from the R-9, a deep cavity leading deep into its core. The engine whined as it destabilised, energy crackling out of the hole. An unseen pair of hands yanked his moustache from behind.

"Sonic says "hi", by the way." The voice muttered in his ear.

Robotnik was already running, diving into an escape hatch as the robot detonated behind him, a massive series of explosions sending masonry falling into the reinforced tunnel as he raced through it to safety.

Finally, he emerged, dusty but unscathed, the smouldering ruins of Final Fever smoking a short distance away. Robotnik rubbed his aching moustache, a scowl on his lips.

"...I _really_ hate that hedgehog."


	26. Chapter 26

"Are you absolutely sure about this?"

"I'm sure." Reason smiled at him. "Unless you wanted to do it yourself?"

Miles frowned. "I wish I could."

"Then it can't _be_ any other way. Don't worry, I know exactly what to do. I lived it too, after all."

"Thanks for this."

"I haven't even done it yet." She laughed, filling herself a bottle of sickly sweet life support liquid.

"You will." Miles smiled sadly. "Oh, watch out for me next time I show up. I'll be pretty moody."

"Do I need to say anything special?"

"You will anyway. I'll be back for you soon." He brushed a hand across her cheek, then never was.

Reason shrugged, going to take a swig of her last meal.

* * *

It was odd what you could get used to.

Miles' whole body hummed with familiar agony, his mind numbed from familiar atrocities, his sanity strained under the familiar passage of eternity.

How _many_ eternities exactly, he'd lost count, but he knew he deserved every moment, his body burning away and being rebuilt with every passing instant.

The outer surface of the Death Egg had been the first step. A simple display on a timed rotation, as above, so below. Show the stars, show the Earth - lightless, dead. It was done all too quickly, robbing him of his chance to procrastinate.

Next, Miles had hand-built every crumbling storeroom, every Happy Days tube, every twisted corridor. And in every tube, he had gently laid each tiny skeleton by hand, each one freshly replaced using the cloning machines. A stable time loop using the same bones wouldn't work, after all. Perhaps for the first few loops, but after a million years? Sixty million?

So, instead, he bred children for slaughter. Grown and broken in the cloning vats, never even opening their eyes, but alive enough to die, so that their Earthbound copies might live.

Alive enough to damn him countless times over.

Miles didn't know, one way or another, why Happy Days existed, why he had been taken, if there was an original cause to all this madness. But the answer was now him. _He_ had handcrafted the worst horrors of Happy Days with painstaking care. _He_ was the one who built the assault team to kidnap one naïve young fox and lock him into this hell as penance for the crimes he was only now committing. He was now the sole cause behind this madness, all better to take control of the situation.

All in preparation for this one desperate gamble.

A bulkhead exploded as his friends arrived. Here, of course, in hot pursuit, looking to rescue _him_.

The question wasn't if he'd win. He _knew_ he'd win. Their bones were catalogued among all the rest, after all. Their tubes lay empty, waiting for their inevitable occupants.

Miles pulled a metal helmet down to complete his armoured disguise, orange metal covering white and black fur, black and crimson visor concealing his luminous gaze.

The question was what the universe would let him do when he did.

* * *

"Good morning, little one." Miles smiled, brushing a white-gloved hand across pink cheeks like he had every day since she'd been born. "Can you feel the sunshine?"

Lifting the tiny girl in one arm and two tails, Miles drew mechanical curtains, allowing warm light to flood the chilly metal room with glorious brightness.

"Taydol!" Bright blue eyes staring up at him, stubby pink fingers yanking at golden orange fur.

"That's me." He grinned. "Your daddy… uh, left me to take care of you."

He tickled her with the white tips of his tails, drawing out squealing laughter as she tried to bite down on them.

"It's just going to be you and me for a while, but don't be scared. I'm going to be right here with you the whole time." Miles winced as tiny teeth chomped down on his tail. "I'll _never_ leave you alone. Not even a single day."

Endless Miles swarmed around him, pushing rings into his body to keep him alive without his Chronos state. Like they had every day since she had been born. Like they would every day until she went into Happy Days, never abandoned, never forgotten.

Miles smiled once more. "I promise."

* * *

And so Miles arrived at an end, a beginning, and a middle once more.

 _Everything_ was an end, a beginning, and a middle.

Time was funny like that.

Reason slept peacefully on his lap, her orange fur starkly contrasted against his own.

He let her sleep, gently humming a familiar song as he waited, gently kneading the orange fur on the top of her head.

He was in no hurry to reach this particular beginning.

Miles sighed, ash drifting from his mouth as he memorised every strand of fur, traced every detail into his mind. Not so much lost as stranded in his thoughts.

Finally, Reason stirred, blue eyes opening to look into his rainbow gaze.

"Is it time?"

Miles nodded, hand outstretched. Light blazed out around them, blinding bright as time dilation came to an end as quickly as it began. At least from an outside perspective.

"Try not to cry." Reason leaned up, nuzzling him under the chin.

The pleasant warmth around them was gone. Replaced by deathly chill, cool light with a dull red glow. Cleanliness with rust.

"I'm not." Miles looked away.

Away from her.

Away from the grim red orb he'd constructed. Its writhing metal tentacles limp, its control centre vacant. Waiting for its first host.

She was the only one with a neural interface after all. Any surgery on him would either regenerate as fast as he could cut, or deplete his rings, allowing the ravages of the Chronos state to kill him.

It was the only rational choice.

However much he might hate it.

Reason pulled his head back towards her, her smile filling his world one last time.

"You will." She pressed her lips against his briefly before pulling away. "You always do."

She stuck her tongue out at him, dropping clothes on the floor in a heap at his feet before hopping into the grim machine. Metallic tendrils reached for her, pulling her into their embrace.

" _But that's okay."_ Metallic speakers crackled out from the machine as it writhed into life, orb snapping shut, liquid flowing into the chamber. " _Sadness just means that we're still alive, in the end."_ A metal tendril brushed his cheeks where tears would come before she turned away, dragging herself to the first of many tasks as caretaker of Happy Days. " _I'll see you soon, my beautiful little dream."_

Daughter, sister, dearly beloved, granddaughter… and Mama.

Miles wiped a glove slowly across his lips, then again over his cheeks, blinking rapidly as he too turned away.

One final end, one final beginning still to reach.

* * *

"Is it done?" Miles whispered ashes into the frigid air.

" _Of course."_ Mama... Reason settled down alongside him, metal coils trailing gently around him.

"And they're all… happy?" He swallowed around a hard lump in his throat. Five Happy Days tubes stood before him, on their way elsewhere. Five familiar bodies drifted suspended within.

" _All except you._ _ **You**_ _are a troublemaker."_ Mama buzzed in amusement, lightly squeezing him in a steel embrace. " _They are perfectly happy in the heavens you built them. And the first of the rabbits has been seeded."_

"Is it over?" Was there anything he missed? Anything forgotten?

Anything else he could do?

" _It's over whenever you want it to be. Your choice has_ _ **always**_ _been the only thing keeping you here."_

Miles shattered. Shards in the shape of precious gems tumbled from him, one in each colour, seven in all. Breaking away, fading, disappearing to the surface of Little Planet, so long ago, where Sonic might find them, where, perhaps, they'd _always_ been, waiting for when they were needed.

And one pitifully small fragment remained, charred and smouldering, shivering and broken. Miles fell to the floor, coughing up white ashes until he threw up black sludge. Grey tears streamed down white cheeks as his fur became yellow-orange once more, permanently this time.

Endless hands supported him, but no longer his own. Cradling him in metal as Miles, for the first time in forever, became _temporal_.

" _Take your time."_ Mama stroked his fur. Loving. Patient. " _As much as you need."_

Miles straightened at last, twin tails twirling around one another in endless spirals.

"Thank you again for this." He pressed his hand against the crimson glass, staring at the sleeping fox within, her expression serene. "And I'm sorry for… everything."

" _I will get to spend the rest of my life telling you how much I love you."_ Mama gently placed him down. " _And who knows? You kill a rabbit, not a fox, and there's a whole lot of future out there for me to see you again."_

"I hope so." Miles trailed his fingers across the glass, blue eyes damp. "I... love you too, Reason."

Mechanical laughter spilled out all around him.

" _Liar."_

Miles turned away, tears spilling into his fur. "You'll find out if it's true or not next time I see you."

" _Hah. Then it's a date. Take care of yourself until then, little dream. **Someone** will have to, after all."_

Reason shooed Miles onto one final elevator, brushing over his fur one final time in farewell before this too ended. An ovoid shuttlecraft sat waiting for him at the top, black and crimson in colour, all prepped for launch.

He was the last passenger to board.

* * *

"Ugh. Where am I? That last bot was something _else_."

A blue hedgehog straightened, hand on his head.

"Try not to move too much."

" _Tails!_ " Blue spines streaked over, skidding to a halt before an upturned hand.

"Trying to steer the spaceship, Sonic."

"Oops, sorry pal. How did we all get away? How did _you_ get away?"

"Turns out all I had to do was quantum disentangle their thermovoltaic dynamic regulatron to overload the local chronosphere's transitional mainframe." Miles grinned. "Kids' stuff, really. We're just heading home now."

"Uh. Wow. Okay, little buddy. Great work." A gloved hand patted his shoulder. "Proud of ya."

"Ugh. Anyone get the number of that- wait? Where are we? How did we-" A red echidna bolted upright.  
"Tails did a science thing." The blue hedgehog waved both hands to discourage further inquiry.

"Oh, uh, okay. Guess you didn't need us to save you this time after all, Tails."

"I just got lucky while you distracted them is all, guys." Miles rubbed the back of his head, an embarrassed grin forming on his lips.

"S… Sonic? What- Tails!" A blur of pink crashed into him, upturned hand be damned.

"Ah! Not while I'm flying!"

The pink hedgehog ignored him, squeezing him tight. "We were so _worried_! Are you okay?"

"Thanks, Amy. I'm…" Tails blinked rapidly, staring out at the Earth growing large beneath them. "I'll be fine. Really."

It hadn't taken much time, relatively speaking, to tweak the cloning vats in order to make four perfect clones. Even less to copy over some memories.

He'd asked Reason to try and bring the originals here if she could.

He'd asked her to never, ever tell him if she succeeded or not.

Somewhere, behind and above him, his past self had already finished his ordeal. His friends had died, happy. Reason and Doodle had lived out their lives hopelessly loving him.

All the evils of Happy Days had come to pass in the blink of an eye, with the world still intact and none the wiser. And all the loose threads had somehow been dealt with to the universe's satisfaction - unchanged, but different.

He had done it. It had taken _so_ much, and given him so many scars in return, inside and out, but he had finally escaped Happy Days. He, no, _they_ were all going home. It was finally, _finally_ over.

"Hey, wait a second. Is that _Cream_?" The echidna turned in surprise. "What's _she_ doing here?"

Miles' tails went dead straight as he stiffened in horrified realisation.

"Oh, _rabbits_."

**The End**


	27. Epilogue

There wasn't a cloud in the sky.

Miles stared out at the endless blue with a sad smile on his lips, drumming his fingers across his desk as he watched the day go by, swinging his legs at a chair slightly too tall for him.

The eternal child. Except now, more than ever, he was more like some eldritch horror, ancient and terrible, with enough children sacrificed in his name to make any self-respecting demon king green with envy.

But children, even ancient ones, were resilient. Him more than most. The dull familiarity of normality was perhaps a little slower to soothe his restless heart than before, the weight of his sins and the people he'd lost perhaps a little heavier, but not unbearably so.

Mostly… he just remembered. Or forgot. Mostly forgot, despite his best attempts. A mind wasn't built to remember even _one_ eternity, after all. That's why the ancients created the magic of writing things down.

Miles sighed, glancing down at the gloves he'd stolen from himself. He reached inside, fishing out a scorched scrap of paper he'd long thought lost from within, and he read it again.

Thirteen words written in a trembling hand were his substitute for family, after all. He might as well peruse them now and then.

_Your name is Miles Prower._

_And you are going to save the world._

Miles nodded, one eye turning crystalline pink. Rings tumbled from his body along with a puff of roiling smoke.

Part of the note became unburnt. And a line of text appeared, written in a flowing script that had _always_ been there:

_It's okay to be wrong, sometimes._

Miles breathed out a cloud of ashes as his eye faded back to blue, admiring his handiwork until it backfilled his memories. One last scuffle with time.

At least for now.

"Knock knock!"

Miles glanced up, sliding the note into his glove and hammerspace. A pink quilled hedgehog poked her head around the doorway with a dazzling smile.

"Amy." Miles smiled back, faintly. "Here looking for Sonic?"

_Prower, you're my hero. And you always will be._

Her smile widened into the glorious grin he knew so well, whichever face wore it.

"Just wondering if he was here?"

Miles shook his head, his own smile fixed in place. "He left for Emerald Hills this morning. Do you want me to call him for you?"

Amy shook her head, her bob-cut so different from the hard spikes of her youth.

"That's fine. I'll wait for him here." She plonked down on his couch uninvited, already searching for the TV remote. "So what are you up to, Tails? Gadgets as usual?"

"Something like that." Miles stood, fishing the remote from a cup on his desk where Sonic had left it last night.

"You're so cool." Amy laughed. "I bet if _I_ could do all that science stuff, Sonic would be all 'Hey, Amy! Marry me! Also, build me a plane!' or something like that."

"... Heh. Yeah, you know me. Mister popular."

"You okay, Tails?" She glanced at him, green eyes wide.

"I'm fine." Miles rubbed his eyes with a smile. "Just a little grit."

"Huh. You really _should_ dust in here sometimes you know. It's all over the place. Maybe I'll do it for you later. I know you're hopeless at cleaning things." Amy grinned again. "Anyway!" She patted beside her on the couch. "Get your butts down here. There's a movie I wanted to watch with you."

"Butt _._ And you _know_ I always sleep through movies." Miles admonished.

"Oh come on, it's the middle of the morning. You'll be _fine_." Amy patted again. "Plus it's got a plot I _know_ you'll love. Time travel, some corny "save the world" plot, robots, laser swords…" She waggled her eyebrows at him.

"...Fine." Miles relented with a sigh.

Like he always did.

"Wait who's that guy?" Amy leaned against him, pointing at the screen.

"That's the main character. They just introduced him last scene."

"I used to have that jacket!"

"Oh really."

"You should try wearing something like that sometime."

"Amy, enough people already think that I'm a girl already."

"Oh come on! I bet you would look _super_ cute. I'll bring- Wait, who's that?"

"That's the main character again."

"No, the _girl_."

"The boxer? That's his friend, they just said."

"Cool. She looks tough. Who's that she's talking to?"

"Are you messing with me again?"

Miles made it twenty minutes before passing out.

And Amy, long forgotten implant sparking to life inside her head, smiled dreamily down at him, kneading the fur on his head with loving care while he slept, humming a familiar tune to herself.

It really would have been _such_ a shame to waste her, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this alternative look at Tails the Fox, and the final chapter in the Happy Days trilogy - Eternal Tails CD.
> 
> Our hero has saved the day, saved his friends, saved the world, and saved at least two fair damsels, even if he'd perhaps have preferred to save a few more. And, while he didn't quite manage to stop existing, life goes on all the same, and he found he had the strength to keep going after all.
> 
> As with all the ET stories, Chronos Divide was a story about an impossible problem only Miles could handle, while exploring content that wasn't particularly fleshed out in the original canon - something that all the beta content, extra special stages, and cut content for Sonic CD has in ample supply.
> 
> But in the end this turned out to be a story about so many things I'm still not sure which genre tags should be on it, a lot of which wasn't in the original plan.
> 
> A lot of this started when Miles lost his tail, and a tidy plot exploring Miles' friendship with Amy and the oddities of Sonic CD's cut content went off its meds and started talking about determinism and free will.
> 
> A big part of the story was Miles' interactions with Doodle and her clones. There's always the concern when including OCs that they will either overshadow (or overpower!) the beloved originals, fail to live up to the quality of the rest of the cast, or, even worse, both at the same time. Hopefully they missed these pitfalls. Doodle's mad genius and tragic obsession for Miles, and Reason's balance between that and Miles' own quirky self. They were both a lot of fun to write, and I hope you had liked them too.
> 
> Comments, suggestions and requests are always welcome. Things you liked, things you thought needed work, how Doodle x Elise would be the best ship. Heck, even impossible scenarios you think would inflict sufficient suffering on our vulpine protagonist to tempt my interest or any Eternal Tails one-shot character introspectives you'd like to see in future.
> 
> Bonus question: Should this story be tagged with a / or an & relationship? Both? I still have no idea.
> 
> Finally, as always, I hope you enjoyed reading.
> 
> ~ Pan


End file.
